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. Jenna Healey


Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine At Queen's University

Dr. Shelly McKellar


Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at Western University

Dr. Darrel Manitowabi


Hannah Chair in Indigenous Health and Indigenous Traditional Medicine at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine

Dr. Susan Lamb


Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at the University of Ottawa

Dr. George Weisz


Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at McGill University

Dr. Frank Stahnisch


Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at the University of Calgary

Post-Doctoral Fellows

Jennifer Fraser

2021 Post-Doctoral Fellow

Epidemiology Ad Nauseum: Risk, Reasoning, and Hyperemesis Gravidarum


Jennifer’s project highlights the highly contingent nature of HG risk and draws attention to the specific science-society configurations that have impacted how women’s symptoms have been both understood and managed by Canadian healthcare professionals over time.

Stephen Pow

2021 Post-Doctoral Fellow

The Global Challenge of Cholera in the Nineteenth Century: Standard Narratives and New Perspectives on Societal Responses and Medical Notions


Stephen’s project brings together trends in public health, environmental, and Asian history, while strengthening new methodological insights and approaches. Based on historical research, the project highlights how globalization trends brought new challenges in containing cholera.

Cynthia Tang

2021 Post-Doctoral Fellow

“A Short Cut to Better Services”: A History of Day Surgery and Post-Operative Patient Care in the British National Health Service, c. 1950-2000


This project will reconstruct the history of day/outpatient surgery in Britain and consider its adoption in the context of the 1990s National Health Service reforms. As Canadian healthcare increasingly transitions to the use of outpatient approaches as a strategy for decreasing long surgical wait times, a better understanding of their adoption and outcomes in other healthcare systems will be instructive.

Kyle Falcon

2020 Post-Doctoral Fellow

Debilitated Veterans of the First World War


Kyle Falcon researches how disabled veterans coped with war-related debilities and the impact these had on their domestic lives.

Maia Woolner

2020 Post-Doctoral Fellow

Home Bodies: Wearable healthcare technologies from 1880s to 1940s


Maia Woolner works to trace the circulation and consumption of medico-electric devices and their affiliated healthcare products and advertisements.

Fedir Razumenko

2019 Post-Doctoral Fellow

Exploring ethics and Canadian clinical cancer trials, 1978-1998


My AMS postdoctoral research project examines an historical trajectory shaping clinical research and its regulation in Canada.

Doctoral Completion Grants

Lucy Vorobej

2021 Doctoral Completion Award

“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.

Ceilidh Auger-Day

2020 Doctoral Completion Award

Navigating Canadian healthcare before Medicare


Ceilidh Auger-Day researches how Canadians made individual health-related decisions when facing injury or illness between 1900-1940.

Martin Beaulieu

2020 Doctoral Completion Award

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.

Matthew Davidson

2020 Doctoral Completion Award

Health under occupation: Haitian encounters with U.S. imperial medicine, 1915-1934


Matthew Davidson examines U.S. military occupation in Haiti and the multiple ways it impacted Haiti’s public health.

Eric Story

2020 Doctoral Completion Award

The effect of tuberculosis on men during and after the First World War


Eric Story examines the history of tuberculosis in the era of the First World War.

Karissa Patton

2019 Doctoral Completion Award

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.

Megan Davies

2021 Project Grant

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

2021 Project Grant

“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

2021 Project Grant

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

2021 Project Grant

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

2021 Project Grant

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

Lydia Wytenbroek
The University of British Columbia

History of vaccine resistance in Canada

Catherine Carstairs
University of Guelph

2019

How to save a life: Investigating gendering biomedical innovation

Dr. Sandra Hyde
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.”

Dr. Isabelle Perreault
University of Ottawa

Health and medicine in the Maritimes 1765-1830: Knowledge, networks, and practices in an age of revolution and loyalism

Dr. Wendy Churchill
University of New Brunswick

Exploring ethics and Canadian clinical cancer trials, 1978-1998

Fedir Razumenko

Caring for the Commonwealth: Nurses, Doctors and the Colombo Plan of the 1950’s

Dr. Wendy Churchill
University of New Brunswick

A short history of global/international health in the Americas: Canadian perspectives

Dr. Anne-Emanuelle Birn
University of Toronto

2018

Diversity of research traditions in the history of autism

Dr. Margo Vicedo
University of Toronto

Life before medicare

Dr. Jenna Healey
Queen’s University

The history of the Hornby and Danman Community Health Care Society, 1978-2010

Dr. Megan Davies
York University

False faces: Examining the cultural history of cosmetic surgery

Kathryn Schweishelm

Healing the body to save the soul: Jesuit medicine in 17th century Asia

Oana Baboi

Manuscripting English medical knowledge in the early age of print

Lori Jones

2017

Creating a Centre for Science, Technology, Environment and Medicine Studies (C-STEMS) at the University of Calgary, AB

Dr. Frank Stahnisch
University of Calgary

The origins and uses of a verbal artifact in clinical medicine, 1920-2000

Dr. Michel Shamy
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Colonial extractions: Oral health, Indigenous Peoples and the federal government

Dr. Catherine Carstairs
University of Guelph

Childhood hand hygiene education and responsible motherhood in Canada, 1910-1979

Dr. Emma Whelan
Dalhousie University

Indigenous mental health workers and the challenges of cross-cultural psychiatry at the Sioux Lookout Zone Hospital, 1969-1996

Dr. Gerald McKinley
Western University

Exploring the history of natural childbirth in Canada and the world

Whitney Wood

2016

Dr. Sasha Mullally
University of New Brunswick

Dr. Jacalyn Duffin
Queen’s University

Dr. Elizabeth Neswald
Brock University

Dr. Catherine Carstairs
University of Guelph

Canada’s health humanitarian work in South and Southeast Asia, 1950-1968.

Jill Campbell-Miller

Examining interwar veterans and healthcare in Alberta

Will Pratt

2015

Patient involvement in Canadian medical education: A historical study to inform the future

Dr. Angela Towle PhD, BSc
University of British Columbia

Mindfulness and emotionally healthy students in Canadian schools, 1960s to the present

Dr. Catherine Gidney PhD, MA, BA
St. Thomas University

Frances Oldham Kelsey, M.D., Ph. D.: From Cobble Hill to the F.D.A.

Dr. Cheryl Warsh PhD, MA, BA
Vancouver Island University

From brains on the bench to images of mind? A critical appraisal.

Dr. Frank Stahnisch PhD, MD, MSc, BA
University of Calgary

Exploring LSD Psychotherapy in the United States, 1949-1976

Matthew Oram

Interpreting the genetic revolution

Devon Stillwell

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.