History of Medicine: People and projects
Get to know our endowed Hannah Chairs and other
funding recipients. Be inspired by their work.
Hannah Chairs
Through permanent endowment these eight professors teach the history of medicine in healthcare education. Learn about their exceptional backgrounds and research interests.
Dr. Darrel Manitowabi
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Will Pratt
Examining interwar veterans and healthcare in Alberta
Will Pratt finished his PhD at the University of Calgary in 2016, writing a dissertation on the medicalization of Canadian Army morale in the Second World War. He has published papers on military psychiatry and venereal disease. His upcoming project looks to examine interwar veterans and healthcare in Alberta. He has a master’s degree in…
Kandace Bogaert
Understanding the history of war trauma and psychiatric illness among Canadian veterans
Kandace is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies in the Department of History at Wilfrid Laurier University. She completed her PhD in Medical Anthropology at McMaster University in 2015. Her post-doctoral research focuses on veterans’ experiences with war trauma following the First World War. Forming the foundation…
Erich Weidenhammer
Preserving public health materials in Canada
Erich is currently working at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH) on an AMS postdoctoral project that explores the place of the material culture of public health in local collections. Its focus is on Toronto as a historically-significant hub for research and the development of public health infrastructure, a centre for outreach in schools…
Matthew Oram
Exploring LSD Psychotherapy in the United States, 1949-1976
Matthew will be using his AMS History of Medicine and Healthcare Postdoctoral Fellowship to complete his book “The Trials of Psychedelic Therapy: LSD Psychotherapy in the United States, 1949-1976,” at the University of Calgary. This book explores the history of research investigating the therapeutic potential of the psychedelic drug LSD in the United States, which was widespread…
Devon Stillwell
Interpreting the genetic revolution
Devon is a Visiting Scholar in American Culture at the University of Michigan. She completed her Ph.D in History, and a Diploma in Gender Studies and Feminist Research, at McMaster University in 2013. From 2013 to 2015, Devon was a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University in the History of Medicine. Her research centers…
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Doctoral Completion Grants
Lucy Vorobej
“By Their Own Efforts”: First Nations Health Policy in Canada, 1945-1980
Lucy’s project examines the development and implementation of First Nations health policy during Canada’s post-war period of integration. It analyzes how the idea of race and the objectives of settler colonialism impacted debates about jurisdiction, affected the nature of health services offered to First Nations peoples, and limited the creation of meaningful partnerships with First Nations leaders.
Martin Beaulieu
The therapeutic use of cinema to treat mentally ill patients (1895-1950)
Martin Beaulieu examines the therapeutic use of cinema by the mental health professions, trying to understand why and how the cinema was considered a therapeutic tool to treat mental disorders.
Karissa Patton
Con(tra)ceptualizing care: Birth control centres, feminist models of healthcare, and reproductive politics in Southern Alberta, 1969-1979
Following the provincial implementation of medicare and the federal decriminalization of birth control in 1969, feminist birth control centres took up the provision of reproductive health services and education throughout the 1970s in the province of Alberta. Activists at these birth control centres created feminist models of healthcare and provided important health services locally and…
Project Grantees
These grantees received small budget support for projects in history of healthcare/disease and medicine.
Kristin Burnett
The Work of the Hamilton Branch of the YWCA in Indian Hospitals, Sanatoria, and Residential Schools
During the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, women’s philanthropic organizations made financial and in-kind contributions to Indian hospitals, sanatoria, and residential schools. Records from the Department of Indian Affairs and churches describe the arrival of clothing, bedding, medicine, and toys from women’s organizations. For large voluntary organizations, these contributions went further to include running educational…
Megan Davies
Deinstitutionalization in the Netherlands: A Memory Project
Megan’s project will help us understand how the policies and experience of the transition to community mental health in the 1980s in the Netherlands was shaped by period and place using an innovative methodology developed over the last decade by researchers at the Madness Canada/ folie Canada website.
Caroline Lieffers
“We’re just as honourable as anyone else”: Aging in Canada, 1850-Present
Caroline’s project examines the history of Canada’s aged population from around the 1850s to the present developing new ways to think about the history of aging, health policy, and geriatric medicine and nursing, but also gaining clarity into our present-day situation.
Man-Chiu Poon
Towards a Historical Evaluation of Patient-Oriented Research in Canada: how the past informs the present changing the future
It is well known that Healthcare policies, practices, and health research are intertwined. Man-Chui’s project will contribute to a better understanding of why the scientific-medical community has prioritized certain health research policies, such as the patient-oriented framework.
Peter Twohig
The Labour of Care During COVID-19: A Long-Term Care Case Study
The impact of COVID-19 on nursing home residents and workers captured global attention. Peter’s project will generate oral histories of the labour of care during COVID-19. It will preserve these experiences while examining how staff in long-term care (LTC) facilities adapted to working during the pandemic, the impact of their daily work, and their adaptations during COVID-19.
Helen Vandenberg
The History of Saskatchewan’s Early Hospitals, 1873-1920
Helen’s project will examine the history of Saskatchewan’s hospitals, before the hospital standardization movement of the 1920s when over 40 hospitals were built in the province. Analyzing the complexities of Canada’s early hospital history, and how it was shaped by region, policy, and context.
2020
Imperial pathways of mobility: doctoring women and the American surgical enterprise in Iran, 1888-1940
The University of British Columbia
History of vaccine resistance in Canada
University of Guelph
2019
How to save a life: Investigating gendering biomedical innovation
McGill University
“Illustrer le travail du coroner, du médecin légiste et de l’historien : défis et enjeux de l’histoire du geste suicidaire au Québec depuis 250 ans.”
University of Ottawa
Health and medicine in the Maritimes 1765-1830: Knowledge, networks, and practices in an age of revolution and loyalism
University of New Brunswick
Exploring ethics and Canadian clinical cancer trials, 1978-1998
Caring for the Commonwealth: Nurses, Doctors and the Colombo Plan of the 1950’s
University of New Brunswick
A short history of global/international health in the Americas: Canadian perspectives
University of Toronto
2018
Diversity of research traditions in the history of autism
University of Toronto
Life before medicare
Queen’s University
The history of the Hornby and Danman Community Health Care Society, 1978-2010
York University
False faces: Examining the cultural history of cosmetic surgery
Healing the body to save the soul: Jesuit medicine in 17th century Asia
Manuscripting English medical knowledge in the early age of print
2017
Creating a Centre for Science, Technology, Environment and Medicine Studies (C-STEMS) at the University of Calgary, AB
University of Calgary
The origins and uses of a verbal artifact in clinical medicine, 1920-2000
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Colonial extractions: Oral health, Indigenous Peoples and the federal government
University of Guelph
Childhood hand hygiene education and responsible motherhood in Canada, 1910-1979
Dalhousie University
Indigenous mental health workers and the challenges of cross-cultural psychiatry at the Sioux Lookout Zone Hospital, 1969-1996
Western University
Exploring the history of natural childbirth in Canada and the world
2016
University of New Brunswick
Queen’s University
Brock University
University of Guelph
Canada’s health humanitarian work in South and Southeast Asia, 1950-1968.
Examining interwar veterans and healthcare in Alberta
2015
Patient involvement in Canadian medical education: A historical study to inform the future
University of British Columbia
Mindfulness and emotionally healthy students in Canadian schools, 1960s to the present
St. Thomas University
Frances Oldham Kelsey, M.D., Ph. D.: From Cobble Hill to the F.D.A.
Vancouver Island University
From brains on the bench to images of mind? A critical appraisal.
University of Calgary
Exploring LSD Psychotherapy in the United States, 1949-1976
Interpreting the genetic revolution
Apply for funding
Are you doing important work in this area? Have a timely idea that needs funding? Our grants and fellowships can support your projects and help you access valuable networks.