AMS Healthcare Welcomes Ninth Hannah Chair — and First in Atlantic Canada

Dr. Jennifer Fraser appointed inaugural Roper-Hannah Chair in the History of Healthcare and Health Equity at King’s and Dalhousie

AMS Healthcare is delighted to welcome Dr. Jennifer Fraser as the inaugural Roper-Hannah Chair in the History of Healthcare and Health Equity at the University of King’s College and Dalhousie University.

 

The appointment marks an important milestone for AMS Healthcare. The Roper-Hannah Chair becomes the ninth Hannah Chair in Canada and the first in Atlantic Canada, bringing an Atlantic Canadian perspective to a distinguished national community of scholars that AMS has supported for more than five decades.

 

Since the 1970s, the Hannah Chairs have been at the heart of AMS Healthcare’s commitment to advancing the study of the history of healthcare in Canada. Through generations of scholarship, teaching and mentorship, the Chairs have helped establish and strengthen the field, building knowledge and developing scholars who examine how medicine, healthcare and our understanding of health have evolved — and how that history continues to shape healthcare today.

 

For AMS, the study of healthcare history is not simply about understanding the past. History provides an essential lens through which to examine the assumptions, decisions and structures that have shaped healthcare and to understand how their effects continue to be felt. It can challenge accepted ways of thinking, illuminate the origins of inequities and help inform better decisions about the future of healthcare.

 

“The Hannah Chairs have played an extraordinary role in advancing the study of healthcare history in Canada. Establishing the inaugural Roper-Hannah Chair at King’s and Dalhousie extends that legacy to Atlantic Canada, bringing an important and unique regional health equity perspective to understanding our past and shaping the future of healthcare. We are delighted to welcome Dr. Fraser into the Hannah Chair community,” said Helen Angus, CEO of AMS Healthcare.

 

The Roper-Hannah Chair was established through a $3.5-million endowment, with AMS Healthcare and the J & W Murphy Foundation each contributing $1.75 million.

Dr. Fraser is a historian whose work explores the impact of colonialism on modern healthcare, with particular attention to the historical roots of health inequalities and women’s health. Her research examines how assumptions and practices developed in earlier periods can persist within contemporary healthcare, policy and epidemiology.

 

As the Roper-Hannah Chair, Dr. Fraser will conduct, promote and share research at the intersection of the history of medicine and healthcare, medical and bioethics, and health equity. Beginning in January 2027, she will hold a joint appointment in King’s History of Science and Technology program and Dalhousie’s Department of History and will be cross appointed to Dalhousie’s Department of Bioethics in the Faculty of Medicine.

Her approach reflects an idea fundamental to AMS Healthcare’s History of Healthcare work: understanding the past can help us ask better questions about the present and make better decisions about the future.

 

Dr. Fraser describes that connection clearly:

“I want students to develop a deeper understanding of the complex histories and power dynamics that shape health systems today... My goal is to show students this history isn't confined to the past—it's a flexible skill set that travels into almost any health-related career.”

 

With Dr. Fraser’s appointment, the nine Hannah Chairs form a national community of scholarship in the history of healthcare, bringing together perspectives from across Canada. The Roper-Hannah Chair strengthens that community through its distinctive focus on history, health equity and bioethics and through the perspective it brings from Atlantic Canada.

 

AMS Healthcare looks forward to welcoming Dr. Fraser to the Hannah Chair community and to the scholarship, teaching and conversations she will contribute to this important Canadian legacy.