~This post courtesy Dawne Lucas, Technical Services Archivist, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019 12:00
NOON-1:00 PM Bondurant G-100 (light lunch provided)
Bringing Big Data to Asylum
Studies: Historical Possibilities, Ethical Challenges
Dr. Robert C. Allen, James
Logan Godfrey Professor of American Studies and Co-Director of the Community
Histories Workshop, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sarah E. Almond, Assistant
Director, Community Histories Workshop, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill
Using material from the State Archives of North Carolina,
Dr. Allen and Ms. Almond have overseen the creation of what they believe to be
the first comprehensive, searchable patient database of a nineteenth-century
American insane asylum, some 7200 admissions between 1856 and 1918.
Complementing the database is a collection of some 5500 extended intake forms
(1887-1918), and hospital/state administrative records, including a hospital
cemetery inventory of more than 700 interred patients, minutes of hospital
board meetings, comprehensive medical staff meetings and interviews with
patients (1916-17), and records of the N.C. Eugenics Board (1958-59). Utilizing
a multi-disciplinary approach, Allen and Almond, together with their students,
are exploring these unique materials and their ethical use in research,
graduate and professional teaching/training, and public engagement.
Dr. Robert C. Allen is the James Logan Godfrey Professor of American Studies
and Co-Director of the Community Histories Workshop. He co-founded and was
Director of the Digital Innovation Lab (2011-2016) and Co-PI of the Carolina
Digital Humanities Initiative (2012-14). His work on “Going to the Show,” an online
digital resource documenting the history of moviegoing in North Carolina, was
awarded the American Historical Association’s Rosenzweig Prize for Innovation
in Digital History in 2011.
Sarah E. Almond is the assistant director of UNC’s Community Histories
Workshop. She previously served two years as the program coordinator of the
Dorothea Dix Park History Initiative. She is a recent graduate of the joint
Masters program between NCSU and UNC-SILS, and holds a MA in Public History in
addition to a MSLS with a focus on archives and records management. Her primary
interests include archival accessibility and representation, implementation of
community archiving practices, and digital humanities pedagogy. She holds
certificates in Digital History (NCSU) as well as Digital Curation (UNC-SILS),
and is the designer and co-creator of Redlining Hayti, which links
discriminatory lending practices and urban renewal in her hometown of Durham,
NC. She holds a BA, summa cum laude, in Literature and Language from the University
of North Carolina at Asheville.
Tuesday, October 15, 2019 12:00 NOON-1:00
PM Bondurant 2025 (light lunch provided)
Artificial Hearts: A
Controversial Medical Technology and Its Sensational Patient Cases from Haskell
Karp to Dick Cheney
Shelley McKellar, PhD, Hannah Professor in the History of
Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University,
London, Ontario, Canada
Today artificial hearts are a clinical reality after decades of contentious
development. Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney told reporters that it
‘saved his life’ when asked about living with an artificial heart device for 20
months in 2010-2012. But not all artificial heart implant patients, like
Haskell Karp and Barney Clark, enjoyed such successful recoveries.
In this presentation, McKellar examines the clinical use of artificial
hearts since the 1960s, situating the triumphant narrative of this technology
and its ‘resurrectionist capacity’ alongside technical device challenges and
difficult patient experiences. Who would not want a life-saving, off-the-shelf
device fix for a loved one dying of heart failure? The appeal was the
promissory nature of artificial hearts as a life-sustaining treatment, a
medical technology that might alter the usual course of events that when a
person’s heart failed, that person died.
McKellar argues that desirability—rather than feasibility or practicality of
artificial hearts—drove the development of this technology. Artificial hearts
were (and are) an imperfect technology, and its controversial history speaks to
questions of expectations, limitations and uncertainty in a high-technology
medical world.
Shelley McKellar, PhD is the Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at the
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University. She is also
a Full Professor in the Department of History at Western University. She earned
her PhD degree in History from the University of Toronto, after which she
worked on a documentary history project at the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, DC, and then she accepted her academic position at Western
University in London, Ontario, Canada.
Her research focuses on the history of surgery, medical technology and the
material culture of medicine. She is the author of several books and articles:
her first book, entitled Surgical Limits, is a biography of Canadian
surgeon Gordon Murray, one of Canada’s most prominent and controversial
surgeons, who was also dubbed Canada’s ‘blue baby doctor’ for fixing congenital
heart malformations in the era before open-heart surgery; she co-authored the
book Medicine and Technology in Canada, 1900-1950, which highlights
medical devices and practices in Canada, such as insulin, TB x-ray screening,
and the use of iron lungs. Her most recent book, Artificial Hearts: The
Allure and Ambivalence of a Controversial Medical Technology published by
Johns Hopkins University Press, traces the potential and promise of this
medical technology from the 1950s to present day.
At Western University, she teaches history of disease courses that focus on
epidemic outbreaks and social response to history students in the Faculty of
Social Science. She also teaches the history of medicine, the medical
profession, and related historical aspects of ‘doctoring’ to medical students
in the medical school at Western University. She is also curator of the Medical
Artifact Collection at Western – a small research and teaching university
collection – that allows her to play with amputation saws, toothkeys,
bloodletting instruments and more with her students.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019 12:00
NOON-2:00 PM Fearrington Reading Room, Wilson Special Collections Library
(light lunch NOT provided for this one!)
Drop by to compare what you’ve seen in the gross anatomy lab with historical
representations of human anatomy over the centuries. Materials are drawn from
holdings at the Wilson Special Collections Library. You don’t want to miss this
fun and educational open house event.
About the Bullitt History of Medicine Club
The Bullitt History of Medicine Club is a student
organization within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of
Medicine. The club promotes the understanding and appreciation of the
historical foundations upon which current medical knowledge and practice is
constructed, by encouraging social and intellectual exchanges between faculty
members, medical students, and members of the community. The club’s annual
McLendon-Thomas Award recognizes the best unpublished essay on an historical
topic in the health sciences written by a UNC-Chapel Hill student. Please visit
the Bullitt History of Medicine Club website for more information.
