When:
Thursday, November 12, 2015
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM CT
Where: Robert H Lurie Medical Research Center, Searle Seminar Room, 303 E. Superior, Chicago, IL 60611 map it
Contact:
Bryan Morrison
(312) 503-1927
Group: Medical Humanities & Bioethics Lunchtime Montgomery Lectures
Category: Lectures & Meetings
The Complete History Of Opium (Abridged)
Richard J. Miller, PhD
Professor in Pharmacology, and
Medical Humanities and Bioethics
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Opium and its derivatives are of great importance in medicine being the best drugs for controlling pain. They also played an important part in the development of recreational drug taking in Western countries. We will briefly discuss the history of opiates in medicine and some examples of their influence on art and artists.
When:
Thursday, November 19, 2015
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM CT
Where: Robert H Lurie Medical Research Center, Searle Seminar Room, 303 E. Superior, Chicago, IL 60611 map it
Contact:
Bryan Morrison
(312) 503-1927
Group: Medical Humanities & Bioethics Lunchtime Montgomery Lectures
Category: Lectures & Meetings
Annalese Duprey-Henry
Doctoral Student, English Department
Graduate Affiliate, MH&B Program
Northwestern University
The Violence of Illness and the Compassionate Physician: Emotional Roles in Medicine
Wasting illnesses—from medieval lovesickness to cancer to AIDS—evoke a particular sort of horror as the body is slowly consumed. Descriptions of these illnesses often feature metaphors of attack as well as consumption: the violent illness overcomes the strength of the patient to fend off its attacker. The unique vulnerability of the body and the miasma of contagion, as well as the duration of attack, create the circumstances for a peculiar type of intimacy between the patient and his or her attendants. This talk will examine the emotional roles forged by ravaging illnesses with an emphasis on the compassion evoked in the caretaker, and its potential for intimacy.
When:
Thursday, December 3, 2015
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM CT
Where: Robert H Lurie Medical Research Center, Searle Seminar Room, 303 E. Superior, Chicago, IL 60611 map it
Contact:
Bryan Morrison
(312) 503-1927
Group: Medical Humanities & Bioethics Lunchtime Montgomery Lectures
Category: Lectures & Meetings
The Role of A Surgeon On The Ethics Team
Charles Dabbs, MD MA
Surgical Resident at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine
Alum, MD/MA in Medical Humanities & Bioethics Dual-Degree Program, Northwestern University
It is mandated that all hospitals have an ethics committee which clearly means that someone thinks that their existence and function are vital. However, the participation of surgeons on ethics committees can be rare and this can leave gaps in the knowledge of the ethics committee as a whole. The purpose of this talk is to discuss both the special role that a surgeon can fill on their local ethics committee and the specifically surgical issues that can present themselves at any given hospital.
When:
Thursday, January 7, 2016
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM CT
Where: Robert H Lurie Medical Research Center, Searle Seminar Room, 303 E. Superior, Chicago, IL 60611 map it
Contact:
Bryan Morrison
(312) 503-1927
Group: Medical Humanities & Bioethics Lunchtime Montgomery Lectures
Category: Lectures & Meetings
Sarah Rodriguez, PhD
Lecturer in Medical Humanities and Bioethics
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Experience as Evidence: Obstetricians, Feminist Health Advocates, and Episiotomy in the 1970s
Though rarely performed in the beginning of the 20th century, during the 1950s through the 1970s episiotomy was performed routinely on American women when they gave birth. Beginning in the 1980s, however, evidence from randomized control trials began to show that the reasons traditionally given for routine episiotomy did not hold. Reacting to these studies, in 2006, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a practice bulletin calling for an end to the routine use of episiotomy, saying the “best available data do not support the liberal or routine use of episiotomy.” The uptake, rise, and fall of routine episiotomy in the United States is a story about medical evidence. In this talk, I will focus on a moment just before the new evidence in the form of RCTs emerged – the 1970s – when feminist health activists were the ones challenging the evidence supporting the routine use of episiotomies.
When:
Thursday, January 14, 2016
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM CT
Where: Robert H Lurie Medical Research Center, Searle Seminar Room, 303 E. Superior, Chicago, IL 60611 map it
Contact:
Bryan Morrison
(312) 503-1927
Group: Medical Humanities & Bioethics Lunchtime Montgomery Lectures
Category: Lectures & Meetings
Aaron Greenberg
Doctoral Student, English Department
Graduate Affiliate, MH&B Program
Northwestern University
The Project of Life-Prolongation in Francis Bacon’s History of Life and Death
In the early seventeenth century, Francis Bacon undertakes an astonishingly comprehensive study of longevity in order to “consider by what meanes the Life of man may be prolonged.” He writes from within a culture that was deeply hostile to the project of life-extension—for theological reasons, because “Christians aspiring to Heaven,” for example, should be indifferent to the length of earthly life; and for ethical reasons, for instance, because preoccupation with life-extension prevents one from coming to terms with mortality and actually living in the first place. This talk examines Bacon’s negotiation of these traditions and his case for life-prolongation, which are increasingly relevant today in light of redoubled efforts in medicine and biotechnology to lengthen the human lifespan. Bacon’s text will help us tackle two principal questions: First, what were the meanings of “life” in early modern England such that it might be measured and lengthened? And second, if we can lengthen life, should we do so, and under what conditions?