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History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series
The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library sponsors the annual History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series as an educational service for the University of Virginia Health System and interested citizens in the community. The Library hopes that the speakers and topics selected will promote a greater understanding of the historical and philosophical underpinnings of todays health care disciplines.
The generous support of friends, faculty, and alumni of the University of Virginia Health System provides funding for the Lecture Series.
2008/2009 History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series
The History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series has joined forces with the Medical Center Hour . Our new lectures will take place on Wednesdays from 12:30 to 1:30 at the Jordan Conference Center Auditorium unless otherwise noted.
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Podcasts for all the MCHs may be listened to without subscribing to the feed directly on your computer.
Complete Medical Center Hour Lecture Series Schedule [1.9MB PDF]
Dissection, Deception, and Resurrection: Anatomical Instruction in Virginia in the 19th Century
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Study of anatomy has for centuries been an integral - and often highly charged - part of medical education. Anatomical instruction and dissection were inculcated in American medical education in 1765, with the founding of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. As other medical schools formed in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century, they also incorporated anatomical dissection into their formal instructional program. Both the University of Virginia and the Medical Department of Hampden Sydney College, later the Medical College of Virginia, took pride in their anatomy classes. Of course, anatomical study required a ready supply of cadavers. In the period before the 1884 passage of the Virginia Anatomical Act, legislation which legalized procurement of dead bodies for anatomical study, the two schools both cooperated and competed in their quests to obtain appropriate human dissection material for instructional purposes. This Medical Center Hour explores the two schools' stories of deception, dissection, and resurrection and affords insight into anatomical instruction in 19th-century Virginia. Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
- Author: Jodi L. Koste. M.A. Associate Professor, VCU Libraries; Archivist and Head, Resources and Operations, Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA
The Politics of Vaccination in American History
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Politics of Vaccination Lecture Notes
Vaccination raises unique ethical, political, and legal questions. Like any medical intervention, vaccination carries with it the small risk of adverse reactions. Unlike other procedures, however, it is performed on healthy people, most commonly children, and, importantly, vaccination has been mandated by law because of its community-wide benefits. For much of the life of this country, and especially during the past 150 years, public health and medical professionals have sought to achieve high levels of vaccine use in the U.S. population against a growing catalogue of infectious diseases. Nevertheless, vaccination policy and practices have always been subject to challenges by individuals and groups and, even today, controversies swirl in association with efforts to vaccinate our population. While the science of vaccination has often seemed clear and straightforward, the politics of vaccination is quite another matter, and this Medical Center Hour inquires into that complex situation across our country's history and into the present moment. Co-presented with the Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life and the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, Historical Collections of the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library.
- Author: James Colgrove, Ph.D., M.P.H. Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York NY
- View: "Vaccines: Separating Facts From Fear" from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. This video addresses parents’ concerns regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccinations, including negative side-effects. The section titled “Good information vs. Bad information” was shown by Colgrove for the Medical Center Hour.
Previous Lecture Series
To be placed on the mailing list for the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, please contact Joan Echtenkamp Klein, Assistant Director for Historical Collections & Services, at jre@virginia.edu or at (434) 924-0052.
The University of Virginia School of Medicine is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The University of Virginia School of Medicine designates this continuing medical educational activity for up to one credit-hour in Category 1 credit towards the AMA Physician's Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity. The UVa School of Medicine awards 0.1 CEU (Continuing Education Unit) contact-hour to each non-physician participant successfully completing this educational activity. The CEU is a nationally recognized unit of measure for continuing education and training activities that meet specific educational planning requirements. The UVa School of Medicine maintains a permanent record of participants who have been awarded CEUs.