Start Over Unit Claude Moore Health Sciences Library

111. The malaria project: the secret government mission for a cure (1:02:36)

Date:
2016-10-19
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
With malaria a real threat to American troops' fighting fitness, the U.S. government during World War II mounted an all-out hunt for a malaria cure. Tropical-disease researchers with the Rockefeller Foundation took the lead on a secret project that adopted German research models and methods, including use of institutionalized Americans—inmates in six mental hospitals and several large prisons—both for culturing the parasites that cause malaria (there was no animal model) and for testing experimental drugs against the disease. After thousands of failed starts (and much human harm), the researchers had their "magic bullet": a German antimalarial compound captured in battle. This drug, reformulated in the U.S., is chloroquine, one of the most important pharmaceuticals ever made to fight malaria. In this Medical Center Hour, public health journalist Karen Masterson and infectious diseases specialist Dr. Richard Pearson delve into this tale of secret science in the service of war efforts and into research that was conducted before promulgation of federal rules and regulations governing human participation in biomedical research. Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series of Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library

112. The medical sublime (57:58)

Date:
2014-03-19
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
In its emphasis on instrumentality, on the patient as something to be acted upon, and on the doctor as an abstracted agent of diagnosis and treatment, medicine often neglects the practitioner's involvement in the clinical scene. Recent attempts to direct attention to this aspect of practice have been stymied by medicine's nearly exclusive reliance on a quantitative, positivist disposition, with which humanist scholarship has had difficulty gaining traction. The narrative medicine movement, as articulated by Dr. Rita Charon of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, has gained widespread attention within the medical academy. But physician and literature scholar Dr. Terrence Holt argues that, for all its positive features (and despite Dr. Charon's efforts to define it otherwise), narrative medicine as applied remains committed to an interventional model that is at odds with the strengths of the humanities. Drawing on readings of texts such as Shakespeare's King Lear, Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Shelley's Frankenstein, and the poetry of John Keats, Dr. Holt contends that the value of the humanities in medical education and practice is not as an intervention but as a diagnostic modality—and that the proper first object of diagnosis may not be the patient, but the physician. The Ellis Moore Lecture of the School of Medicine

113. The new MCAT and doctors for the 21st century (1:01:15)

Date:
2013-01-23
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
With health care reform on the near horizon and other social realities (aging, immigration, chronic conditions, quests for prevention and wellness) dramatically changing health care in the U.S., what kinds of doctors will our health care system (and its patients) require? Clearly, not just medical school curricula but also the selection process for medical students will be key determinants of whether we have physicians fully prepared to practice as the 21st century progresses. This Medical center hour addresses transformational changes underway in the pre-professional preparation and selection of the nation's medical students, including a new version of the MCAT exam, which goes "live" in 2015. What does this new MCAT signal for premedical students as they prepare for medical school? How might colleges and universities offer their premedical students academic experiences that will better equip them for medical school and medical practice in the 21st century? Co-presented with the Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures, UVa A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture

114. The opioid epidemic's impact on public health and patient care (59:55)

Date:
2017-10-04
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
The opioid epidemic raging in the U.S., including in Virginia and neighboring states, took nearly two decades to develop and will take years to quell. So says the recent National Academy of Medicine (NAM) report, Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic: Balancing Societal and Individual Benefits and Risks of Prescription Opioid Use (July 2017). Drug overdose due to opioid medications is now this country's leading cause of unintentional injury death. The current crisis is particularly challenging because the epidemic's broad reach "has blurred the formerly distinct social boundary between prescribed opioids and illegally manufactured ones, such as heroin," asserts the NAM committee's chair, UVA law professor Richard J. Bonnie. In this Medical Center Hour, Professor Bonnie and palliative care specialist Dr. Leslie Blackhall address the impact of this epidemic on public health and patient care and discuss what actions regulatory bodies, health care organizations, and health care professionals could take. A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture

115. The play's the thing: teaching leadership with creative arts (1:02:17)

Date:
2014-04-02
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
Despite their reliance on technical knowledge that requires mastery, medicine, law, and business are all deeply human professions. Medicine is more than body repair, law more than legal systems, business more than the physics of money. While professional education necessarily must be at the cutting edge of technical expertise, it must remember too the human nature—including the values, emotions, and richly complicated lives—of professionals and professional organizations. In this Medical Center Hour, Professor Ed Freeman from UVA's Darden School of Business demonstrates how the creative arts and humanities can be embedded in professional education to address and actively teach ethical conduct in professional life and leadership of complex professional organizations. What lessons in course design, student engagement, and classroom outcomes might medical educators draw from Professor Freeman's courses, "Business Ethics through Literature" and "Leadership, Ethics, and Theater"? A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture Co-presented with the Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life, UVA

116. The political science of psychiatric diagnosis, a moral defense of the DSM (1:01:15)

Date:
2014-02-26
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
The Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM) is perhaps the most contested document in American medicine, vital for the organization and funding of psychiatric research and mental health care, yet perennially criticized both from within and behond the mental health community. Heated debate accompanied the 2013 publication of the manual's fifth edition, DSM-5. Critics charged that the new edition masks political interests (e.g. interests of psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies) under the guise of science at patients' expense. DSM-5 defenders championed the inclusiveness and transparency of the review process and evidence-base behind the manual's diagnostic decisions. In this Medical center hour, psychiatrist and theologian Warren Kinghorn argues for a mediating alternative: that the DSM may be best understood as neither an apolitical "encyclopedia" of psychopathology nor a political cloak for psychatric power, but rather as a working document of a living moral tradition. In this case the tradition-constituted discourse allows for appreciation of the DSM as a useful scientific document that reflects the moral assumptions and convictions of the communities that created and continue to sustain it. Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series

117. The primary care physician, an endangered species? (1:02:15)

Date:
2012-09-19
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
With the aging of our nation's practicing physicians and the recent, steep decline in medical graduates choosing careers in primary care for adults, U.S. patients today are hard pressed to find a primary care doctor. And the already impressive gap between supply and demand of primary care physicians will likely widen once more than 30 million people gain access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The urgent shortage of primary care physicians compounds this country's already significant health care challenges regarding access, delivery, and cost of care. In an era when all of health care is undergoing potentially transformative change, what will be the role of primary care doctors? For patients, what will be the "value added" of having a primary care M.D.? What roles will other primary providers (physician assistants, nurse practitioners) play? Is the primary care physician an endangered species, or a key participant in a newly configured primary care team? How can we devise, model, deploy, and teach new ways of delivering primary care that are team based, interprofessionally collaborative, effective, and satisfying to patients and practitioners alike? In this Medical Center Hour, family doctor and medical journalist Susan Okie draws on her recent Perspective article in the New England Journal of Medicine to explore the prospects ahead for the primary care physician. Two of UVA's primary care physicians: one a mid career family medicine physician and teacher, the other a medical student planning a primary care career offer their perspectives as well. Co-presented with the Generalist Scholars Program in observance at UVA of Primary Care Week

118. The surprising collapse of marijuana prohibition, what now? (1:02:05)

Date:
2015-02-25
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
Marijuana has had a rocky and peculiar history in the United States. The early history of marijuana prohibition is fairly well known, thanks in part to a classic work on the subject, The Marijuana Conviction, co-authored by Richard J. Bonnie while he was associate director of a commission apppointed by Richard Nixon. In 1972, to the surprise of many, the commission recommended decriminalizing marijuana use, but it also rejected the idea of legalization, expressing major concerns about the public health consequences of doing so. While loosening marijuana laws became a mainstream policy idea through the Ford and Carter admisistrations, in the Reagan White House, a policy of "zero tolerance" took hold and evolved into a new and costly war on all illegal drugs. Millions of marijuana arrests ensued. As the drug war's costs accumulated in the early 21st century, support for decriminalizing marijuana returned. Some states defied the federal government by legalizing medical use. Then, suddenly, in 2012, voter initiatives in Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana for recreational use and, in 2014, voters in Washington DC did the same, with legalization in the District due to take effect 26 February 2015. The worries raised by the commission in 1972 are back, complicated by the challenges of implementing the law. This Medical center hour's principal speaker, who has both chronicled this story and been a player in it for more than four decades, will reflect on why marijuana prohibition suddenly collapsed and on what should happen next. Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library

119. The topography of wellness: how health and disease have shaped the American landscape (1:03:52)

Date:
2021-03-17
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
When it comes to matters of health, environment, and urban history, lessons of the past are often forgotten by Americans. However, in many ways, fears from American epidemics in the last 150 years have all become acute again with the COVID-19 pandemic. Working at the intersection of public health and urban/environmental history, architect Sara Jensen Carr investigates how shifts in the American urban landscape were driven by health concerns, and how these have led to this inflection point between living in the pandemic and a post-pandemic future. She's joined by urban and environmental planner Tim Beatley in this Medical Center Hour that addresses the "topography of wellness" in our urban public spaces even as we anticipate COVID-driven design changes. History of the Health Sciences Lecture Co-presented with Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library; Center for Design + Health, School of Architecture; and University of Virginia Press

120. The type 2 diabetes crisis, can history help us address it? (58:53)

Date:
2013-03-20
Main contributors:
University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
We hear almost daily about the rapidly increasing rate of type 2 diabetes in the U.S. population. Many pronouncements are dire, proclaiming an "epidemic," and most make it sound as though this problem is relatively new-just three or four decades old. Yet almost 100 years ago a small group of U.S. health care professionals was already warning that diabetes was "a public health problem," fated to become worse if nothing was done soon. But what did they mean by this? Why had they grown concerned? And what measures did they recommend to try and reverse the upward trend in diabetes rates? In this Medical Center Hour, historian Arleen Tuchman asks what we can learn from history that might help us understand better how we are framing the diabetes "crisis" today, and why. How do cultural assumptions about diabetes, and about the particular populations believed to be most at risk, influence not only our understanding of this disease but also our efforts to gain control over it? Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series