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Oral interview of Catharina Min, class of 1990, co-founder of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA), who discusses her time at UVA Law and the founding of APALSA.
Oral history interview with UVA Law professor John T. Monahan regarding his work with the Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy. Monahan, a psychologist, was hired to teach at the Law School in 1980 and has worked closely with Richard J. Bonnie and ILPPP since then. He has directed two research networks for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation related to mental health law.
Nimura, Janice P., University of Virginia. School of Medicine
Summary:
The world recoiled at the idea of a woman doctor, yet Elizabeth Blackwell persisted, and in 1849 became the first woman in the U.S. to receive an MD. Her achievement made her an icon. Her younger sister Emily followed her, eternally eclipsed despite being the more brilliant physician of the pair. Together, they founded the first hospital staffed entirely by women, in New York City. While the Doctors Blackwell were visionary and tenacious—they prevailed against a resistant male medical establishment—they weren't always aligned with women's movements, or even with each other. In this Medical Center Hour, biographer Janice Nimura celebrates the Blackwells as pioneers, change agents, and, for women in medicine today, compelling yet somewhat equivocal role models.
Co-presented with Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
Oral history interview with Robert W. “Bob” Olson, class of 1970. Olson discusses the events surrounding the UVA student strike in May 1970 against the Vietnam War, and his participation in the events as a legal marshal.
Toccata by Joo Won Park is a solo live electroacoustic piece for
found objects and the SuperCollider program. Joo Won performs
this piece by scratching, rubbing, tapping, and pushing the objects
in different ways on a board with a contact microphone. What you
hear is the sound of those objects being digitally processed. Every
time you see him clicking on a laptop, you hear different effect
combinations. In the pre-performance ritual, he mentally prepares
himself to create a wide range of sounds in a nervous and hectic
mood. The performance guide and the SuperCollider patch for
Toccata can be found at www.joowonpark.net/Toccata.pdf
smooth is piece written for the KYMA signal processing system and Wacom Tablet interface.
Limited Aggregation, by Max Tfirn and Seung-Hye Kim, is a collaborative piece for percussion and computer that explores sounds that are found by hitting different percussion instruments and modified by live processing. Each composer in the collaboration composes new material and edits each other’s material on the fly. This blends the composers’ compositional styles. Each sound from the percussion and computer interacts with every other, creating larger sounds and richer textures. There are also moments where the component sounds are zoomed in on that creates a contest between the larger built sounds and the microscopic natural sounds. These microscopic zoomed sounds are products of analyzing the spectrum and taking certain characteristics of the sound and filtering out others. The changing length of the processed sounds also reinforces the small/microscopic and zoomed aspects.
Within a Sand Dune, by Erik Deluca, scored for amplified percussion quartet with one player, involved a compositional system inspired by time listening to the breath of the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. The percussion quartet transduces the sounds of the dunes, and the composer’s experience listening to them.
37720, by Rachel Trapp, is a construction of found sound shaped through a process of unfolding telematic communication. Acoustic and inductive recordings of the composers’ simultaneous transit rituals are transformed and positioned in the performance space according to the composers’ shared sensibilities, creating an audible landscape of movement across time, space, and subjectivity.
Look the Other Way, by Kristina Warren: “I explore what I call “found text.” First I compiled texts from several sources, including novels, poems, and newsreels. Then I digitally recorded myself singing- speaking them, and next used various means to obscure the words (e.g., recording to and from tape, intensive layering, etc). This serves to emphasize the sonic and de-emphasize the semantic qualities of the source texts. In performance, I modulate the resulting texture by way of live, semi-semantic vocal input. All this aims to re-consider both signification and authorship.”
Touching, by Eli Stine, is an exploration of surface: surface sounds of different objects and the surface layer of musical structure. Sonic materials come exclusively from recordings of touching, leading to friction, leading to striking of surfaces and objects and their resultant resonances. The sounds of these objects meet and interact, but no interaction is more than skin deep.
Hyperions, by Paul Turowski, is software that presents an interactive context for musical improvisation. While the performer is free to make specific choices about pitch, timing and activity level, their choices are recognized by the computer via microphone input and significantly affect the dynamic physics-based system. Chance- based factors, including the gradual advance of destructive agents, make the piece akin to a tower defense game and allow unique visual and sonic textures to emerge with each performance.
Trans, by Ryan Maguire, is a real-time sonification of a computer transcription of a transalpine scene. The original auditory moment, amidst a herd of cows along a Swiss mountain pass awaiting an approaching thunderstorm, is transformed via machine/human listening and digital transmission. Through repeated transmutation the transience of this particular “found sound” is transpired. In general, all signals are transmodified, and transparency is only relative. The transitory can never be truly transfixed because, first, we have only its trace and, second, communication necessitates transduction wherein its substance is transmuted. Nevertheless, might transpersonal knowledge of such ephemerality facilitate transcendent experience and/or esthesic trance?
Oral history interview with John Petrila, class of 1976, regarding his work as ILPPP’s first mental health law fellow. Petrila discusses the founding years of the institute and its impact on his career.
Oral history interview of Sujaya Rajguru, class of 2022, via Zoom, on March 28, 2022. Rajguru discussed VLW programs and activities supporting women law students’ education and career interests, as well as VLW administration issues.
Oral history interview of Celeste Redmond-Smith, class of 1985, via Zoom, on February 2, 2022. Redmond-Smith discussed sexism at the Law School and in law firms’ employment practices in the 1980s. Redmond-Smith also discussed Virginia Law Women (VLW) programs supporting women law students during the employment interview process, and gave her views on diversity in the Law School and VLW.
Fred Reno interviews Stephen Barnard, winemaker and vineyard manager for Keswick Vineyards. They discuss his move from South Africa to Virginia, the deep historical roots of some of Keswick’s property, his love of Cabernet Franc, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Damien Blanchon, the winemaker and vineyard manager of Afton Mountain Vineyards. They discuss his journey to discovering wine, his unique approach to vineyard management, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Chelsey Blevins, the winemaker at Fifty-Third Winery and Vineyard. They discuss her entry into the wine industry, some of the notable Virginia winemakers she has worked with, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Jake Busching of Jake Busching Wines and Hark Vineyards. They discuss his work for Jefferson Vineyards, his work with Chris Hill and Aaron Hark, his affection for working with Cabernet Franc, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Cory Craighill, of Septenary Winery, and Ashleigh White, of Glen Manor Vineyards. They discuss the beginnings of their careers in the wine industry, in addition to their opinions on the present and future of Virginia wines, while providing a perspective on the industry from the younger generation.
Fred Reno interviews Bill Curtis, owner of Tastings Restaurant, Wine Bar and Wine Shop in Charlottesville, Virginia. They discuss his approach to cooking, the pioneers of Virginia winegrowing, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Rutger de Vink, the founder of RDV Vineyards, and Josh Grainer, the winemaker at RDV. They discuss De Vink’s experience working with Jim Law, of Linden Vineyards, as well as the background of their bestselling wine and Virginia terroir.
Fred Reno interviews Patrick Duffeler, owner and founder, and Matthew Meyer, winemaker, of Williamsburg Winery. They discuss what drew them to wine, thoughts on Climate Change and its impact on wine growing, the art of tasting wine, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Scott Elliff, the owner and founder of DuCard Vineyards. They discuss supporting philanthropy through the wine industry, sales strategy, creating the greenest Virginia winery, in addition to much more.
Fred Reno interviews Matthieu Finot, the winemaker for King Family Vineyards. They discuss his experiences making wine around the world, his transition to making wine in Virginia, the Winemakers Research Exchange, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Kirsty Harmon, the winemaker and general manager of Blenheim Vineyards. They discuss her education in Enology, her work with Patricia Kluge and Gabriele Rausse, as well as Dave Matthews and his involvement with Blenheim Vineyards, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Lee Hartman, the winemaker for Bluestone Vineyard. They discuss what sets the Shenandoah Valley apart as a Virginia wine-growing region, the meaning behind the name Bluestone, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Mike Heny, the winemaker for Michael Shaps Wineworks. They discuss the beginnings of his interest in wine, his take on hybrid grapes in Virginia, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Chris Hill, a noted and accomplished Viticulturalist in Virginia. Some of the notable vineyards Chris Hill has partnered with are Michael Shaps Winery, Pollack Vineyards, Barren Ridge Vineyards, Veritas Vineyard and Winery, King Family Vineyards, Keswick Vineyards, Lovingston Winery, and Pippin Hill Farm and Vineyards.
Fred Reno interviews Andrew Hodson, the owner and founder of Veritas Vineyard and Winery. They discuss his journey to found his winery and make a mark on Virginia winemaking with the help of his family.
Fred Reno interviews Sharon Horton of Horton Vineyards. They discuss Dennis and Sharon’s journey from starting a small hobby vineyard and how that transformed into a full-time pursuit in winegrowing. They also touch on Norton grapes and how winemaking has become a family endeavor with their daughter.
This is the final part of Fred Reno’s interviews about Dennis Horton after his passing. Dennis Horton was a leader of Virginia viticulture and the founder of Horton Vineyards. In this episode, Fred Reno interviews Sharon Horton (Dennis’ wife), Shannon Horton (their daughter), and Caitlin Horton (their granddaughter) as they reflect on Dennis and his legacy.
Fred Reno interviews Ben Jordan, the winemaker for Early Mountain Vineyards. They discuss how his wine career moved from California to Virginia, his thoughts on hybrid grapes, Early Mountain Vineyard’s Petit Manseng, and more.
Fred Reno interviews the minds behind Common Wealth Crush Company. Ben Jordan, Tim Jordan, and Patt Eagan discuss their beginnings in the wine industry and what led them to open a winemaker studio in downtown Waynesboro, Virginia.
Fred Reno interviews Jim Law, Founder/Winemaker of Linden Vineyards. Law discusses and reflects on his career as he approaches 40 years of winegrowing.
Fred Reno interviews Jenni McCloud, owner of Chrysalis Vineyards at the AG District. They discuss the background and history of the Norton grape, which was propagated in Richmond, Virginia in the 1820s. They also discuss her commitment to the land and how the Ag District became an entity recognized by the state.
This is the second part of Fred Reno’s interviews with Virginia wine professionals about Dennis Horton after his passing. Dennis Horton was a leader of Virginia viticulture and the founder of Horton Vineyards. In this episode, Fred Reno interviews Jenni McCloud, Luca Paschina, and Lucie Morton on Horton’s legacy.
Fred Reno interviews Lucie Morton, world-renowned ampelographer and viticulturalist. They discuss her background and education in winegrowing, her affinity for hybrid grapes, how she discovered a grape disease, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Jason Murray, the owner and winemaker for Arterra Winery. They discuss his approach to growing and making “Clean Wine,” and much more.
Fred Reno interviews Luca Paschina, general manager and winemaker for Barboursville Vineyards. They cover his youth in Italy, his professional beginnings in the Napa Valley and Upstate New York, as well as Southern and Northern Italy, and his move to working with Barboursville Vineyards in Virginia, where he has been for the past 30 years.
Fred Reno interviews Chris Pearmund, the owner of Pearmund Cellars. They discuss how he started in the wine industry, his journey to learning about wine and winemaking, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Gabriele Rausse, who the New York Times calls the father of the modern-day Virginia wine industry. Rausse describes the early beginnings of what is a 44-year journey in wine making and propagating plants. He recounts how he came to Virginia to help the Zonin family establish Barboursville Vineyards and make a significant contribution to the growth and quality of Virginia wine production.
In this second and final segment of Fred Reno’s interview with Gabriele, they dig deeper into the reasons why Rausse left Jefferson Vineyard in 1995 and took the position of Director of the Grounds and Gardens at Monticello.
Fred Reno interviews Tim and Peter Rausse, the sons of Gabriele Rausse of Gabriele Rausse Winery. They discuss various experiences they had growing up on a vineyard, and their journey into joining the family business of wine.
Fred Reno interviews Justin Rose, the winemaker for Rosemont Vineyards. They discuss his beginning experiences with wine making, his successful Vermouth project, his work with sparkling wine, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Shepard Rouse, Founder/Winemaker of Rockbridge Winery. They discuss his experience in the wine industry, both in California and Virginia.
Fred Reno interviews Aileen Sevier, the Vice President of Strategy & Marketing for Early Mountain Vineyards. They discuss how her career pivoted into the wine industry, her approach to Wine Clubs, the process of sitting for the Master of Wine diploma, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Michael Shaps, the founder and owner of Shaps Wineworks. They discuss his prior work at Jefferson Vineyards, his interest in the wines of Burgundy, his education at the Lycée Viticole de Beaune in France, and the Virginia wine industry.
Fred Reno interviews Elizabeth & Tony Smith, owners of Afton Mountain Vineyards. They discuss the process of selecting a site to plant, the history of the role of winemaker at Afton Mountain Vineyards, their purchase of the Historic Brand label of The Monticello Wine Company, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Claude Thibaut, the founder and winemaker of Thibaut-Janisson. They discuss his connections to Champagne and his insights into the Virginia wine-growing industry during the early 2000s, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Joy Ting of the Winemakers Research Exchange and Joy Ting Wine. They discuss her work with the Winemakers Research Exchange (WRE), share stories of her work within the Virginia wine industry, and offer their opinions about the future of wine growing in Virginia and the role of hybrids.
Fred Reno interviews Christine, Dennis, and Nathan Vrooman of Ankida Ridge Vineyards. They discuss their journey to plant a vineyard, create delicious wines, and their approach to sustainable farming.
Fred Reno interviews Nate Walsh, the founder and winegrowers of Walsh Family Wines. They discuss his early experience in the wine industry, his various work around Virginia, and his ideas on the future of winegrowing in Virginia and the impacts he has seen from Climate Change.
Fred Reno interviews Jon Wehner of Chatham Vineyards at Church Creek. They discuss his early years working in his family's vineyard, the ways climate change has impacted wine growing since he started in the late 1990s, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Jeff White, the winemaker and founder of Glen Manor Vineyards. They discuss his work with Professor Tony Wolf and Jim Law, the importance of elevation for vineyard sites in Virginia, working with his niece, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Kirk Wiles, CEO and Co-Founder of Paradise Springs Winery. They discuss the challenges he faced starting his winery, his experience producing wine both in California and Virginia, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Professor Tony Wolf, Director of Agricultural Research & Extension Center for Virginia Tech University. They discuss his reasons for pursuing viticulture, his insights into what the future for Virginia winegrowing may look like, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Bruce Zoecklein, Professor Emeritus of Enology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. They discuss his early career and his move from teaching in California to teaching in Virginia. They also discuss his thoughts on hybrid grapes, the differences between wine growing on the west and east coast, and more.
This is the first part of Fred Reno’s interviews with Virginia wine professionals about Dennis Horton after his passing. Dennis Horton was a leader of Virginia viticulture and the founder of Horton Vineyards. In this episode, Fred Reno interviews Bruce Zoecklein and Mike Heny on Horton’s legacy.
Sarnitz, August, Last, Nana, Diamond, Cora, Crane, Sheila
Summary:
Event held in conjunction with the exhibition Reconstructing Wittgenstein. The Architecture of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
In direct comparison to contemporary Viennese works by Behrens, Hoffmann, Frank, Loos or Prutscher, the intriguing qualities of the Stonborough-Wittgenstein House (1926-1928) are highlighted by the radical nature and modernity of its architecture. Today, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is credited with being the architect of the Stonborough-Wittgenstein House in Vienna, in collaboration with Paul Engelmann. The exhibition extends beyond the Viennese context and emphasizes a broader cultural environment, considering the positions of Emerson, Alois Riegl, Schmarsow, Schinkel, Bötticher, Wagner, Behrens, Mies van der Rohe and Perret. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s fundamental structuralism in creating architecture transcends cultural conventions of his age and demonstrates liberation of contemporary modern architecture with the aid of the collage. The exhibition was curated by August Sarnitz, Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and organized as a travelling exhibition with support from the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It includes material provided by the Stonborough Family and the Archives of the City of Vienna, as well as new photographs by Thomas Freiler.
Reconstructing Wittgenstein as an Architect - Ludwig Wittgenstein and Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein
August Sarnitz, Professor, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Wittgenstein: Language, Space and Architecture
Nana Last, Associate Professor in Architecture, UVa School of Architecture
Wittgenstein: Some Continuities and Discontinuities
Cora Diamond, philosopher and Professor Emerita, UVa Department of Philosophy
Scenes of Inhabitation: Freud/Wittgenstein
Sheila Crane, Associate Professor in Architectural History, UVa School of Architecture
Presented by Esther Lorenz, Lecturer, UVa School of Architecture
Supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum, Washington
Oral history interview with Robert “Bob” (Elmo) Schwartz, class of 1980, in-person, on June 21, 2024. Schwartz discussed his experiences as an openly gay student at UVA Law prior to the founding of Lambda Law Alliance; his work as treasurer of the undergraduate school’s Gay Student Union; and his memories playing for the North Grounds Softball League.
This is a video of aerial footage of the Villa Almerico Capra Valmarana, aka Villa la Rotonda, Vicenza, Italy. This video was created by Shayne Brandon, Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities, University of Virginia Library. It was produced from aerial footage captured by a DJI Inspire 1 quadcopter with X1 HD camera. The footage was captured during field work by UVA Architectural History students performed in March 2019 under direction of Andrew Johnston, Worthy Martin and Will Rourk for their 3 Cavaliers granted project to 3D scan the Villa la Rotonda in Vicenza, Italy.
Oral history interview with Christopher Slobogin, class of 1977, regarding his work as ILPPP’s second mental health law fellow. Slobogin discusses the founding years of the institute, his work with the Western State Hospital and Forensic Psychiatry Clinic in the late 1970s, and the impact of ILPPP on his scholarship and career.
Smith, Charles (Charles William), 1893-, Helms, James Strother, 1926-1959
Summary:
One of several films produced about prominent University of Virginia faculty, written and directed by James S. Helms. This film summarizes the career of Augusta County-born artist Charles W. Smith, covering his early print-making career as well as his stylistic shift to non-representational art. Smith is depicted working in his studio, showing his unique methodology of "block painting".
Oral history interview with Dan Sullivan, class of 1970. Sullivan discusses the events surrounding the UVA student strike in May 1970 against the Vietnam War, and his participation in the events as a legal marshal.
Oral history interview with Paul Taddune, class of 1971, in his law office in Aspen, Colorado. Taddune discussed his time attending UVA Law School and the impact of the Vietnam War on students.
Oral history interview via Zoom on January 27, 2022, of past President Danit Tal, class of 2015. Tal discussed experiences of her mother, a lawyer, raising Tal while practicing law, and the challenges associated with working, as a woman, for large law firms (Big Law). Tal reviewed programs implemented while VLW president to support women Law students, including a faculty dinner program and Women in Big Law. Also discussed were challenges of managing VLW generally, and VLW leadership transitions.
Oral history interview with Hillary Taylor, class of 2016, via Zoom, on March 7, 2024. Taylor discussed her time as a member and president of UVA Law’s chapter of Lambda Law Alliance, highlighting the group’s activities and events.
An oral history interview with Dr. Linda R. Thompson, conducted via Zoom by the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library on November 15, 2021. This interview is part of the Medical Alumni Stories Oral History Project, a joint effort of the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library and the UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School Foundation.
Linda Ruth Thompson was born in 1941 in Bristol, Tennessee. She attended King College (now King University) in Bristol, TN, and graduated Magna cum Laude in 1962. Thompson attended the University of Virginia School of Medicine and graduated from medical school in 1966; she was one of three women who graduated in the Class of 1966. After graduation, Thompson completed a rotating internship at the State University of Iowa Hospital in 1967, and then returned to UVA for a residency in psychiatry (1967-1971). She served as the Chief Resident during her final year of residency and also as an Instructor in Psychiatry (1970-1971). Following her residency, she worked as a staff psychiatrist at the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute in Fairfax, VA, before going into private practice in the Washington, DC, area.
Dr. Thompson pursued psychoanalytic training at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, and graduated from the psychoanalysis program in 1983. In 1984, she moved to the Tri-Cities area of northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia, where she has maintained a general psychiatric practice since 1984. Thompson also worked as a consultant until 2014, primarily with regional mental health centers, and she attended psychiatric patients at local community hospitals. In 2016, Thompson published a book about her experiences with breast cancer, which she was diagnosed with and treated for in 2007 and 2008. She continues to practice medicine part-time in Bristol, TN, and writes about issues in modern healthcare. In addition to her book Surviving Breast Cancer, Thompson is the author of two additional books: Return to Asylums: A Prescription for the American Mental Health System, published in 2016, and Old School Medicine: Lower Tech Care to Improve the High Tech Future of Healthcare, published in 2018.
This is a shortened version of the oral history interview conducted with Dr. Thompson in November 2021. The full length interview remains restricted until 2047.
An oral history interview with Dr. Dorothy G. Tompkins, conducted at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library on November 19, 2021. This interview is part of the Medical Alumni Stories Oral History Project, a joint effort of the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library and the UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School Foundation.
Dorothy Ellen Guild Tompkins was born in 1941 and grew up in Louisa County, VA. She majored in biology at the College of William and Mary (graduating in 1962) before matriculating at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. She graduated from medical school in 1966, one of three women in her class. In 1972, Tompkins returned to UVA as a Fellow in Pediatric Cardiology. She went on to be appointed Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in 1973 and Associate Professor of Pediatrics in 1979. Later she worked in the area of addiction treatment, and from 2003-2006 Tompkins served as a pediatrician in the UVA Department of Psychiatric Medicine. A passionate and dedicated teacher, Tompkins received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching and was elected to the School of Medicine's Academy of Distinguished Educators during her time at UVA.
In recent years, Tompkins has been active in local non-profit work, including master gardener, naturalist, and tree steward programs, and extensive work with women recovering from substance abuse and trauma. She helped found an organization called Georgia's Friends, which operates Georgia's Healing House, a supportive residential home for women in recovery. Tompkins is married to Dr. William Fraser Tompkins III (also a member of the UVA SOM Class of 1966). They live in Central Virginia.
Oral history interview of Ellen Brantley, class of 1973, and Elizabeth Trimble, class of 1973, via Zoom, on January 25, 2022. Brantley and Trimble discussed why they decided to study law, how they chose UVA Law School, and how Virginia Law Women (VLW) was established. Review of early VLW recruitment efforts and programs. Brantley and Trimble reminisce about Law School life in the early 1970s.
Health information technology (health IT), including electronic health records (but much, much more), enables health care providers--from individual clinicians to widely networked health care organizations--to better manage patient care through streamlined sharing of health information. Since 2004, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has led U.S. efforts to deploy advanced health IT in order to improve clinical service delivery and support patient engagement. As a result, nearly every hospitalization and most doctor visits now have a digital footprint, and an extraordinary amount of health data exists that simply didn't a decade ago. The health IT goal now is to foster seamless and secure data sharing to improve the health and care of individuals and populations alike.
In this special Medical Center Hour, Dr. Vindell Washington, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, introduces this key national initiative and cites the promise and chief challenges for this increasingly central component of our nation's health care system.
A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
Southern Appalachia often provides a folksy backstory to our national mythology—a tale of coal miners, moonshining, bluegrass, and ballads. But Appalachia is a real place that figures fundamentally in this country's heritage and destiny.
Its rugged mountains are rich in natural resources while its remote communities are home to some of the nation's most fiercely proud people and most persistent poverty. This region has endowed American culture—and the University of Virginia—with a wealth of gifts and innovations but itself faces staggering difficulties. Embracing Appalachia is challenging, especially now, as the coal industry disappears and crises of poor health, environmental degradation, and poverty deepen.
This Medical Center Hour with West Virginia coalfields native David Gordon probes our particular connections to Appalachia and how the enduring tragedy of this place is a “canary in the coalmine” for the rest of our nation.
Is "healthy Appalachia" possible? What will it take? What must we do?
Co-presented with the Center for Global Health, Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures (Global South Initiative), Department of Public Health Sciences, and Healthy Appalachia Institute
"Give a [wo]man a mask and [s]he will tell you the truth." –Oscar Wilde
Since 2010, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center's therapeutic arts program has engaged brain-injured and traumatized military veterans in hands-on mask making. Even as they conceal the face, these soldiers' masks vividly reveal secret suffering, declare deeply felt identity and patriotism, signal spiritual wounds and moral strengths, externalize guilt or grief. Making a mask can help its creator to (re)claim identity, and to heal. In this AOA Lecture, physician-educator Mark Stephens and art therapist Melissa Walker discuss the construction of masks as an artful means of recognizing oneself and reflecting on identity, not just for wounded warriors but also for healthcare professionals.
Co-presented with Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society, UVA Chapter
What happens when an extroverted six-year-old dog and her introverted human partner enter the local public nursing home as a therapy dog team? This was the question writer Sue Halpern (nervously) asked herself when she and her dog Pransky began their work at the Helen Porter Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Middlebury VT. In this Medical Center Hour, Halpern revisits the remarkable experiences she and Pransky had over six years with the nursing home residents, experiences that continued even after Pransky's health declined. She also speaks to the increasingly recognized value of introducing therapy animals into medical settings and the significant physical and emotional benefits that follow—for patients, staff, and therapy teams.
A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
Thirty-five years after the discovery of AIDS, the story of this disease and the momentous scientific, medical, political, and social changes it occasioned is rich and complicated, even sensational. In 1981, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, a young UCLA immunologist, saw--and published a New England Journal of Medicine article about--a cluster of five cases of immune dysfunction and unusual opportunistic infections in gay men. Not long after, as personal physician to Hollywood actor and AIDS patient Rock Hudson, Dr. Gottlieb became the medical face of this terrifying epidemic.
In this Medical Grand Rounds/Medical Center Hour, Dr. Bruce Hillman, a medical school classmate of Michael Gottlieb, probes the war of egos, money, academic power, and Hollywood clout that advanced AIDS research in its first decade even as it compromised the medical scientist who discovered the disease. Dr. Hillman draws on interviews with Dr. Gottlieb and others to chronicle one of the most important and contentious medical discoveries of our time.
Medical Grand Rounds/History of the Health Sciences Lecture
Co-presented with the Department of Medicine and the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series of Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
Deborah Salem Smith's acclaimed play Love alone is the story of what happens after a routine medical procedure goes tragically wrong. A medical malpractice lawsuit ensues, and the lives of both the patient's family and the doctor charged with her care are transformed. The play tracks the fallout in both homes. It is a portrait of how each family grieves and heals. These questions were central in the construction of the plot: Is forgiveness a single act or a daily act? Is it unconditional? Who has the right to forgive? Does forgiveness require remorse or an apology by the offender? Do lawsuits empower victims and thus aid the grieving process, or do they disrupt grieving? Does proving negligence make a victim more prepared to forgive? What does a lawsuit mean for the doctor sued, and for his or her personal journey of recovering from the unexpected death of a patient? George Bernard Shaw famously quipped, "We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession." What are the implications and burdens of such faith? This Medical Center Hour explores Love Alone with the playwright and local actors but also with a physician who has written on doctors' efforts to deal with their own mistakes.
A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
In this Medical Center Hour, award-winning journalist Meera Subramanian explores the human and global health implications of India’s ravaged environmental landscape. Her new book, A River Runs Again: India's Natural World in Crisis, investigates five environmental crises by profiling ordinary people and micro-enterprises determined to guide India and its burgeoning population into a healthier future. An organic farmer revives dead land; villagers resuscitate a river run dry; cook-stove designers seek a smokeless fire; biologists bring vultures back from the brink of extinction; and, in one of India’s poorest states, a bold young woman teaches adolescent girls the fundamentals of sexual health. In these individual stories resides hope for a nation and its people and the potential for a sustainable and more prosperous world.
A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture/Exploring the Global South
Co-presented with the Center for Global Health, Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures (Global South Initiative), Department of Public Health Sciences, and Virginia Quarterly Review
Where you live in a particular U.S. city determines your predicted life expectancy. Neighborhood is destiny, in a way. For example, in New Orleans, there is a twenty-five-year difference in life expectancy from one parish to another only three miles away. This pattern of great gaps in health status, even over short distances, repeats itself in New York, Chicago, the Bay Area, and many other American cities, with harsh consequences.
In 2005, Tulsa, Oklahoma was one of the first cities to recognize such dramatic neighborhood variations in life expectancy, with a fourteen-year difference in life expectancy between north Tulsa and midtown—and to take action. In this presentation, Dr. Gerard Clancy describes specific initiatives and lessons learned on the ten-year journey, from 2005 to 2015, to reverse these health disparities and improve the health of the people in north Tulsa. The successes of the past decade have inspired a new ten-year initiative in Tulsa focused on mental health system improvements.
Co-presented with the Brodie Medical Education Award Committee, the Academy of Distinguished Educators, and the Department of Medicine
Many personal, social, organizational, and regulatory factors in health care today contribute to clinicians experiencing burnout, a chronic stress syndrome characterized by exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of inadequacy. When severe, these symptoms are often accompanied and exacerbated by depression—and sometimes lead to suicide. In this combined Medical Center Hour and Medical Grand Rounds, Dean Gianakos MD FACP will not teach techniques to fortify personal resilience in the face of incipient burnout or offer strategies to reduce the inefficiencies of practice. Rather, using poems and stories, he will open a dialogue on how health professionals can emotionally support one another, initiate crucial conversations, and reduce the isolation that too often characterizes medical practice.
Co-presented with the Department of Medicine, UVA
In the spotlight for years now, health care that is truly equitable and patient-centered and delivered by a diverse, well-integrated team remains a goal—in most sites, it's not yet everyday reality. Individuals and institutions—including health professional schools as well as centers of clinical practice—continue to work toward this goal. But this effort cannot depend just on recruiting more diverse learners, reorganizing clinical environments, or deploying didactics aimed at eliminating biased attitudes and behaviors. Rather, it’s a matter of redesigning health professional education—curriculum, assessment strategies, learning environments—to prepare a thoroughly diverse workforce ready to counter health disparities. To actually realize diversity’s benefits, we must eschew a colorblind philosophy and embrace principles of equity pedagogy.
In this Medical Center Hour, Dr. Catherine Lucey explores equity pedagogy and how it may help to counter the structural racism and inequitable learning environments of traditional medical school. Such a fundamental change in our pedagogy may be necessary to improve health outcomes for patients of all cultures, colors, creeds, and means and, along the way, establish work environments where clinicians, teachers, and scientists of many backgrounds and professional preparations can all flourish.
A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture / Medical Education Grand Rounds
Co-presented with the Office of Medical Education
Lucy Kalanithi is many things. Physician. Professor. Writer, and speaker. Mother. Widow. She was married for nine years to Dr. Paul Kalanithi, a young neurosurgeon diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, the illness that claimed his life in 2015 at age thirty-seven. As he struggled, suffered, and worried, Paul wrote. His memoir—When Breath Becomes Air, for which Lucy wrote the epilogue—became a bestseller after it was published in 2016.
In this Medical Center Hour, which is also the School of Nursing's annual Bice Memorial Lecture, Dr. Lucy Kalanithi talks with UVA Nursing Professor Ken White about the Kalanithis' challenging journey to the end of Paul's life and how Paul and Lucy did not avoid suffering but, rather, leaned into it and created meaning from it.
The Zula Mae Baber Bice Memorial Lecture
Co-presented with the School of Nursing
Nalini Nadkarni is known as "The Queen of the Rainforest Canopy," being a pioneer in the field of forest canopy research and in public engagement about the plants and animals that live in the treetops. Her interest in rainforest dynamics and in the response of rainforests to disturbances such as harvesting, fire, and climate change has led her to invite input from experts in diverse other fields that also study disruption and recovery--economics, neuroscience, refugee studies, human development, and traffic engineering, to name a few. Exchanges with these experts have given Professor Nadkarni novel insights into theory and models that foster better understanding of disturbance, recovery, and resilience.
Unexpectedly, in 2015, this work also proved personally useful as Professor Nadkarni recovered from extensive trauma sustained when she fell 50 feet from the top of a tree while doing forest canopy fieldwork. In this Medical Center Hour/Medical Grand Rounds, she shares her insights and offers applications for medicine--especially, to the specifics of critical care, and, more generally, to healing.
Medical Grand Rounds / A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
Co-presented with the Department of Medicine
In this Bice Memorial Lecture, Rebecca Rimel looks back on a life in leadership—in her case, serving 26 years as president and CEO of The Pew Charitable Trusts, an innovative and influential public charity involved in health and human services, the arts, public opinion research, and environmental, public health, and national economic policy. Ms. Rimel's service at Pew was anchored in nursing, built upon an exemplary career in healthcare and on what she learned and practiced as a nurse at UVA—management under pressure, clear communication, purpose and motivation, empathy and caring.
Zula Mae Baber Bice Memorial Lecture co-presented with the School of Nursing
How should we imagine the history of distraction? Is it true that the internet has made us distracted in a way that we never have been before? And, if it has, is that necessarily bad? What is distraction, anyway? In this Medical center hour, East Asian cultural historian Shigehisa Kuriyama suggests that comparative reflection on images of skulls and skeletons can offer us illuminating insight into these questions, and into the entwining of distraction with art, anatomy, curiosity, and early modern global trade.
Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
On 13 September 2017, the University of Virginia proudly dedicates as Pinn Hall the medical education and research building formerly known as Jordan Hall. The building’s new name recognizes UVA medical graduate Vivian W. Pinn MD, Class of 1967, founding director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Pinn was the second African American woman to graduate from the School of Medicine and went on to a distinguished career in pathology and in medical leadership. One of the medical school’s four colleges bears Dr. Pinn’s name, and she is an active presence in Pinn College student life.
This Medical Center Hour celebrates Dr. Pinn and her accomplishments and calls attention to critical current issues of fair and full access for underrepresented minorities, especially African American women, as students, practitioners, and leaders in medicine but also as beneficiaries of health care. Individually and institutionally, what can we learn from Dr. Pinn to ensure that her legacy matters?
Co-presented with the Department of Medicine and the Generalist Scholars Program, in conjunction with UVA's dedication of Pinn Hall and the UVA medical students' celebration of Primary Care Week
We've long known about books' ability to comfort, but can they have the power to heal? At a time when burnout is rife among practicing physicians and other clinicians, health care organizations are introducing systemic changes, including wellness programs. Beyond this, though, what might individual clinicians do to stave off burnout and fuel emotional resilience? New research suggests burnout relief may be as close at hand as a good novel. Reading for pleasure--especially, reading literary fiction--seems to enhance empathy and combat emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, thereby improving doctors' abilities to connect with the persons who are their patients and find joy in their work. Indeed, if reading for relaxation makes such a difference, should reading literature be a prescribed part of physician education and training? In this Medical Center Hour, Drs. Daniel Marchalik and Hunter Groninger examine emerging research on books' benefits for doctors and trace their own experience with the Literature and Medicine track at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.
How might the creative arts, as a symbolic and emotional language, help improve well-being in late life? Anne Basting is an acclaimed practitioner and advocate of using the arts to address issues in aging. In this Medical Center Hour, she explores her own creative research and the most promising new practices for improving the lives of elders and caregivers alike.
The Koppaka Family Foundation Lecture in the Medical Humanities
Co-presented with the Southern Gerontological Society Annual Meeting
A diverse population of caregivers working in clients' homes constitutes a vital link in our health care “system,” their services filling a gap between institutional care and what families are able to manage on their own. Who are these caregivers, what is their work, and what does their work mean—to them, to the clients and families they serve, to our larger society? Prompted by the recent documentary film, CARE, by Deirdre Fishel, which profiles five caregivers and their elderly clients, this Medical Center Hour inquires into the nature and lived experience of home-based caregiving for elders. What role will such home care play as our society ages and people seek to stay at home with complex, care-intensive medical conditions? How can we better value and compensate care workers and better support families who need their services? What about the sustainability of the home health caregiving economy and its workforce?
A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
Co-presented with the Department of Chaplaincy Services, UVA Health System
Neurologist Oliver Sacks (1933-2016) was a legend in his own time—as a physician but also as a writer whose work probed medicine, science, and the arts and as a tireless explorer of both the natural world and the human condition. His clinical tales, published in the medical literature and mass media alike, found a wide audience across medicine and society. Behind these tales, which stretched the case history to illuminate and celebrate the person who was marked, and often rendered remarkable, by neuropsychological illness, flared Sacks's own curiosity, an insatiable urge to question and a generous capacity for paying meticulous attention.
In this inaugural Hook Lecture in Medicine and the Arts, writer and photographer Bill Hayes, who was Sacks's late-life partner, offers insights into Oliver Sacks as a person and a physician whose creative nature and prodigious output enriched medicine and culture across a long and productive life. A writer and photographic artist in his own right, Hayes addresses the place of curiosity and creativity in Sacks's practice and his own, especially how, for both, interest in and radical openness to a fellow human being are paramount.
The Edward W. Hook Lecture in Medicine and the Arts / Medical Grand Rounds
Co-presented with the Department of Medicine, with which the Medical Center Hour shares a fund established by the late Edward W. Hook MD MACP whereby the arts can generously enrich medical education and training.
Andreas Vesalius, long hailed as "the father of modern anatomy," is slipping into oblivion. The likes of Gray's Anatomy (the book), Netter's Atlas, plasticized dissected bodies, and online visible human specimens having eclipsed his splendidly illustrated book, On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543), as our definitive anatomy text. Vesalius's recent 500th birthday anniversary gives us a chance not only to celebrate this Renaissance genius, but also to consider how his accomplishments in the study of human anatomy helped medicine to become "modern."
Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series
Chocolate has been special to human beings for millennia. In our time and culture as in earlier centuries and other cultures, claims abound regarding chocolate's health effects, positive and otherwise. What is it about chocolate—chemically and culturally—that makes it so distinctive in our diets, our emotional lives, our celebrations? Why do we love it so, and what does it do to/for us? In this Medical Center Hour, local chocolatier Tim Gearhart offers insights into chocolate's appeal and effects and gives a glimpse of the craft of artisan chocolate-making.
A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
The stethoscope, an extension of the clinician's ear, is perhaps modern medicine's most characteristic symbol. Through it, doctors listen for the body to disclose its secrets. Doctors must also listen to their patients' stories. In fact, as Oliver Sacks said, "The first act of medicine is listening to a personal story." But hasn't the clinician's ear lost much of its importance now that procedures and machines can give us more direct access to pathology?
In this Richardson Lecture, physician and poet John Coulehan affirms the importance of the clinician's aural attention in the clinical encounter and considers three aspects of the metaphorical clinical ear. First, listening to patients, an active process with vertical (deep listening) and horizontal (narrative) dimensions. Second, listening to the heart, the reflective core of clinical practice. And, finally, hearing the resonance of our own healing words. In medicine, the word can be an instrument of healing.
Co-presented with the Office of Quality and Performance Improvement, UVA Health System
During the enlightenment, from 1765, the Habsburg Empire capital of Vienna underwent massive transformations in urban design and appearance, from the introduction of sewer systems and streetlights to urbanization of suburbs and construction of public facilities, including parks, all guided by principles we now consider fundamental to creating healthy, green, livable cities. Habsburg Emperor Joseph II (1780-1790), a reformer with almost utopian (and quite Jeffersonian) ideas about architecture and health, extended these massive changes by contructing Vienna's medical district, including the general hospital, the military hospital, an institute for the mentally ill, and the medical-surgical military academy Josephinum. What does it mean to "construct for health" in designing cities and landscapes, public and private spaces, and health care facilities? This Medical center hour examines the Vienna Project as an important design-and-health precedent. How might we in the twenty-first century enlist design professionals and health professionals together in more deliberate, collaborative efforts to improve public and personal health and well being?
Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, the Center for Design + Health (School of Architecture), the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry (School of Nursing), and the Department of Public Health Sciences and the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities (School of Medicine), as part of the interprofessional symposium “Constructing for Health: A Global Nod to Nightingale,” funded by the Buckner W. Clay Endowment for the Humanities (College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences)
When academic medicine in the U.S. begins to reflect the remarkable diversity of the population it serves, we can potentially start narrowing critical gaps in cultural knowledge, the provision of health care, and the education and advancement of future physicians. Invoking the time-honored art of quilt-making as a metaphor, Dr. Wendi Wills El-Amin will engage the audience at this Medical Center Hour in exploring the urgent issue of minority diversity in academic medicine, including the opportunities that currently exist to craft new patterns and other opportunities we need to create in order to increase minority presence and engagement throughout academic medicine. UVA School of Medicine Associate Dean for Diversity Dr. Greg Townsend will offer a response.
Co-presented with the Office for Diversity, School of Medicine
A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
Early in her own training in psychology a decade ago, Casey Schwartz discovered that contemporary neuroscience and psychoanalysis are entangled in a conflict almost as old as the disciplines themselves. Many neuroscientists, if they think about psychoanalysis at all, view it as outdated, arbitrary, and subjective, while many psychoanalysts decry neuroscience as lacking the true texture of human experience. Yet some are now fighting passionately to bring the two fields together, including Mark Solms, a South African psychoanalyst, neuropsychologist, dream researcher, and towering presence in the effort to grow the hybrid discipline that he himself calls neuropsychoanalysis. Ms. Schwartz has written this story in her new book, In the Mind Fields: Exploring the New Science of Neuropsychoanalysis. In this Medical Center Hour, she tracks and interprets the ongoing struggle to define what we mean by the mind, the brain, and everything in between.
History of the Health Sciences Lecture
Co-presented with History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series and the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences
Dr. Romero shares insights regarding the increasingly important partnership of public health and primary care and the critical need for a strong, patient-centered primary care framework to improve health outcomes.
Co-presented with the Generalist Scholars Program and the Department of Public Health Sciences, UVA, in observance at UVA of Primary Care Week
With availability of medical interventions like cochlear implants to treat deafness, health professionals caring for deaf persons or helping families make reproductive choices about deafness (as in prenatal genetic screening) tend to work from biomedical rather than cultural understandings of deafness. Deaf Americans have produced a fascinating literary corpus over the last 200 years, both writing in English and creating stories and poems in American Sign Language. Similarly, the work of deaf visual artists illustrates powerfully how deafness may be construed as visual and conceptual gain rather than as hearing loss. These expressions of deaf culture also respond to the pathologization and medicalization of deafness in our society, resist the majority's assumptions and norms, and argue for the value of the deaf community and sign.
This Medical center hour explores deaf literature and visual art to suggest that a deeper understanding of deaf culture can help health professionals to provide better care and counsel, medically and ethically speaking, to deaf patients and their families.
Co-presented with the Department of English and the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, UVA
One of medicine’s open secrets is that some patients request reassignment, or degrade, belittle, or harass health care professionals based on those professionals' race or ethnicity. Such patient conduct can raise thorny ethical, legal, and clinical challenges, and can be painful, confusing, and scarring for the physicians and other clinicians involved. This widely practiced, yet scarcely acknowledged, phenomenon poses a fundamental dilemma for law, medicine, and ethics. It also raises hard questions about how we should think about identity, health, and individual autonomy in the healthcare context and how we manage communication around representations of racial and ethnic bias. In this Koppaka Lecture, Drs. Lo and Paul-Emile will discuss their framework for considering and addressing this phenomenon.
The Koppaka Family Foundation Lecture in Medical Humanities
In 1858, young English surgeons Henry Gray and Henry VanDyke Carter published an illustrated anatomy textbook for medical students. Gray's Anatomy has never since been out of print, but little was known about its author and illustrator until acclaimed science writer Bill Hayes—inspired by a photograph of Henry Gray—pieced together their story in The Anatomist. This Medical Center Hour explores the medical, historical, and artistic significance of Gray's Anatomy and also Hayes's unforgettable year alongside medical students in the anatomy lab.
Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
Danny Quirk is a young artist specializing in photorealistic watercolors, painting what the camera cannot capture. Much of his work illustrates the intricacies of human anatomy. On canvas, he paints figures in classic poses (sometimes á la Renaissance anatomist Andreas Vesalius) in striking chiaroscuro lighting. But, more dramatically, he also paints on living subjects, representing on the body's surface the anatomical structures that lie beneath. In this Medical Center Hour, Danny Quirk talks about "dissecting" with a paintbrush—and while he's talking, he'll complete an anatomical drawing on a student volunteer.
Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series
In recent years in the US, increasing workforce diversity has become a priority in health care and other industries. Many companies, including Fortune 500s, now recognize that having a diverse workforce improves both business and the bottom line—indeed, diversity is key to organizational excellence. In this Medical Center Hour, a panel of physicians explores whether UVA Health System's growing diversity can add value in a very different way: can our organization's greater diversity be a lever to mitigate bias in these increasingly fraught times?
A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
Understanding and responding to patients' complex health needs and challenges requires physicians--and all healthcare providers--to think creatively. Knowledge and information are not enough. We must prepare future physicians to think differently and to be mindful of how they think. But future physicians must also possess the skills of a creative artist, because, for many doctors on the clinical frontlines, medicine is a science-using creative art.
In this Medical Center Hour, emergency medicine physician, medical educator, and fiction writer Jay Baruch argues that necessary transformations in medicine and medical education will demand new interdisciplinary skills and methods--and essential contributions from artists, writers, designers, and humanities scholars.
The Moore Lecture of the School of Medicine
Dying in America is very different now from half a century ago. Before World War II, death usually occurred at home, often with no medical intervention. But with the bioscientific and medical advances that began in the 1950's, death became medicalized. In hospitals, it became possible to extend life. Often, patients were cured who would otherwise have died, but many endured protracted deaths in which suffering from treatment was worse than suffering from their fatal illness. Through the last decades of the 20th century, the medical and legal professions, medical ethicists, and the public began to consider ways to limit treatment, even to hasten death. It became generally accepted that all patients have the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment. Now, five U.S. states recognize physician-assisted suicide.
In this Medical center hour, physician and former New England Journal of Medicine editor-in-chief Marcia Angell traces the history of these changes, then inquires into where we stand now on dying--and where we go from here.
Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series
Tuberculosis continues to be one of the world's most deadly infectious diseases, killing almost two million people each year. In this Medical Center Hour, historian Christian McMillen explores TB's stubborn staying power by examining key aspects of the disease—including the rise of drug resistance and TB's resurgence with the HIV/AIDS epidemic—and detailing global efforts to control it since 1900.
Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library