Section of the History of Medicine

The John P. McGovern Lecture in the History of Medicine and Science March 27, 2023 4:30 p.m. Johanna Schoen, Professor of History at Rutgers University, will offer a brief summary of the opening of the Yale-New Haven Special Care Nursery in 1960, the country’s first Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and place the history of the unit into the larger context of emerging neonatology and bioethical debates about when to treat severely ill infants, when not to treat, and how much influence to give parents in these decisions. The talk will take place on March 27th at 4:30 p.m. in the Medical Historical Library, 333 Cedar Street. This is an in-person only event.

Professor John Warner talks to the Yale Daily News about the history and ethics of anatomical dissection in medical schools.

Assistant Professor of Clinical Public Health at Yale School of Public Health, Laura Bothwell, is the EMPH Faculty Spotlight.

Kelly S. O’Donnell, PhD, Lecturer in the History of Science and Medicine at Yale and the 2019 National Library of Medicine Michael E. DeBakey Fellow, will offer the 7th annual Michael E. DeBakey Lecture in the History of Medicine on September 21, 2023.

The latest Faculty Spotlight shines on Jason L. Schwartz, an an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Yale School of Public Health, who teaches primarily about vaccines and vaccination policy.

On the eve of the Annual MD-PhD Program Retreat, Dr. Carolyn Roberts, Assistant Professor of History, History of Science & Medicine and of African Studies at Yale University delivered the a mesmerizing and powerful lecture entitled "Challenging the Past and Charting a New Future: Legacies of Racism in Science and Medicine" examining the historical roots and contemporary manifestation of race and its impact on science and medicine.

Food and Drug Administration advisers will hold a key meeting next month to discuss the state of the pandemic and whether COVID vaccines need to be modified again to better limit the fast-changing virus.

The Morris Dillard lecture, "Racial Science and Slavery in U.S. Medical Schools: A Roundtable Discussion", cosponsored by the Section of the History of Medicine and the Program for Humanities in Medicine, took place on November 30, 2022.

On March 2, 2023 Professor Naomi Rogers will give a lecture for The Heberden Society at Weill Cornell Medicine as part of their 2022-2023 Lecture Series. This hybrid event is free and open to the public.