Medical Humanities Blog

New Missing Link Podcast

Elizabeth Musselman, a historian of science & technology who has one of the best academic podcasts available, recently posted Episode 9 in her podcast series entitled The Missing Link:

How did the Civil War and the Cold War affect the acceptance of evolution in the United States? Tune in to today’s program to find out. This is the second episode in a three-part series on the history behind the evolution-intelligent design controversy.

I have been fortunate enough to have been in contact with Dr. Musselman behind the scenes, and there is a distinct possibility that yours truly may be appearing on a forthcoming Episode, so stay tuned, and check out this wonderful, informative, and professional podcast.

The Science & Epidemiology of Racism

On February 29, 2008, the 29th Annual Minority Health Conference begins at UNC-Chapel Hill.  The Keynote Lecture, entitled "The Science and Epidemiology of Racism in the United States: an Ecosocial Perspective," will be delivered by Nancy Krieger, M.S., Ph.D.  Krieger is a social epidemologist with a background in biochemistry who does important work explaining how socioeconomic conditions produce health and illness.

You can download a 09.28.2007 lecture delivered by Krieger here (fourth from the top, entitled "The Elephants in the Room: Social Justice, Public Health, and Health Inequalities").  The Webcast for the 2.29 lecture runs from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM EDT, and will be available in archival format for those poor saps who, like me, will be unable to watch it live.

Literature & Medicine Podcasts

Giskin Day over at the (UK) Medical Humanities Blog provides a link to several talks stemming from a conference sponsored by the journal Literature & Medicine on "Caring for the Caregiver."

Podcasts available for download include, inter alia, lectures by Rita Charon and Rafael Campo.

The Missing Link

In the process of scouring the Internet for worthwhile podcasts and multimedia related to the medical humanities, I was pleased to discover The Missing Link, a history of science, medicine, and technology podcast hosted by Elizabeth Green Musselman, a history professor at Southwestern University.

The podcast is extremely well-done, with high production values, interviews with important scholars, and fascinating insights.  I particularly enjoyed Episode 5: Strength in Numbers, which traces the dominance of numerative discourse in science and medicine from the early moderns to the present.

Recommended.

Webcast/Podcast On the Social Determinants of Health

Michael Marmot is a central figure in advancing scholarship and theory on the social determinants of health.  He has been knighted for his work, and he is also the Chair of the WHO's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health.  Given my general interest in webcasts/podcasting these days, I was delighted to find a 2005 lecture of Marmot's on the Social Determinants of Longevity and Morality.

Sage Crossroads, an online forum addressing human aging has very kindly granted me permission to link to Marmot's lecture, which is available via podcast (mp3) or webcast.  A transcript is also available.  The lecture is fantastic, and I highly recommend it both for those who have no exposure to Marmot's work and the importance of the social gradient, and for those who are already familiar with his work.

Though I'm making my way through the literature on the social determinants of health, including Marmot's work -- the importance of which can hardly be overstated, IMO -- the lecture was incredibly stimulating.  Highly recommended.

On Black Soldiers, Medicine, and the War Between the States

As one might surmise from the tacked post, I have recently begun to take advantage of podcasted/webcasted space as it relates to the medical humanities.  Yes, at this late hour I arrive.

In any case, I'll try to mark down here any lectures or presentations that could interest a medical humanities audience.

The University of Virginia has an outstanding collection of academic podcasts, and I recently listened to a lecture given by Margaret Humphreys in the History of the Health Sciences Lectures series.  The lecture is entitled Intensely Human: The Health of Black Soldiers in the American Civil War (links to mp3 or Flash Player, ~ 56 minutes long).

Humphreys, of course, is one of the world's leading historians of medicine, and is in particular an expert on the history of medicine and public health in the American South.  The lecture is as fascinating and as incisive as any of Humphreys' work.