Medical History and Departmental Outreach

AHA Session 278
Sunday, January 9, 2022: 11:00 AM-12:30 PM
Preservation Hall, Studio 8 (New Orleans Marriott, 2nd Floor)
Chair:
Lucy Barnhouse, Arkansas State University
Panel:
Nathan P. Crowe, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Minji Lee, Montclair State University
Robin L. Rohrer, Seton Hill University
Jacob Steere-Williams, College of Charleston

Session Abstract

The medical humanities (also known as health humanities) have been described as “the future of pre-health education.” The field, moreover, continues to grow even in this difficult time for higher education. This panel examines the experience of scholars in developing and offering coursework in the medical humanities as part of history department outreach. Courses in medical history, broadly defined, provide a way to engage students with the methods and sources of history. Moreover, they can be tailored to a variety of chronological and regional subfields. This roundtable aims to open conversations about how coursework and interdisciplinary programs in the medical humanities can provide new opportunities for historians and history departments. Such opportunities promise to be particularly valuable in an era of shrinking enrollments—and, often, of external pressure from university administration—even as we grapple with the impact of an ongoing public health crisis. The scholars represented on this panel have research specialties spanning periods from the medieval to the modern, and multiple regions of the globe. They work at a range of institutions, from liberal arts colleges to regional public universities, serving diverse student populations. Each of the presentations on the roundtable engages with the question of how coursework and programming in medical history can serve as valuable outreach for history departments. Such outreach can be accomplished in a variety of ways, as demonstrated, with varying departmental and faculty resources. The panel should be of interest to historians of medicine, department chairs, and any faculty interested in incorporating medical and health history into general education courses.
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