Prof Vanessa Northington Gamble
Vanessa Northington Gamble, MD, PhD is University Professor of Medical Humanities at The George Washington University. She is the first woman and African American to hold this prestigious, endowed faculty position. She is also Professor of Health Policy in the Milken Institute School of Public Health and Professor of American Studies in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Gamble is Adjunct Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Throughout her career she has worked to promote equity and justice in medicine and public health. A physician, scholar, and activist, Dr. Gamble is an internationally recognized expert on the history of American medicine, racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care, public health ethics, and bioethics. She is the author of several widely acclaimed publications on the history of race and racism in American medicine and bioethics. Public service has been a hallmark of her career. She has served on many boards and chaired the committee that took the lead role in the successful campaign to obtain an apology in 1997 from President Clinton for the United States Public Health Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Hastings Center. A proud native of West Philadelphia, Dr. Gamble received her BA from Hampshire College and her MD and PhD in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania.
| Winter Term (TB2 2024) | |
| Format: Lecture
Date/Time: Thursday 29 February 2024, 2 – 3 pm Venue: Arts Complex, B.H05 LT
|
At the Fault Lines of Racial Inequity: African Americans and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic
African Americans entered the twentieth century and influenced how they experienced the 1918 influenza epidemic. Dr. Gamble will analyze the impact of these inequalities on African Americans’ experiences and responses to the 1918 influenza epidemic. It will highlight the resilience of the Black community in the face of this crisis. The talk will also connect the 1918 epidemic to COVID-19 to illuminate how epidemic disease continues to expose the racial inequalities in the United States. There will also be time for Q&A. Refreshments provided. |
| Format: Seminar
Date/Time: Wednesday 6 March 2024, 3 – 4 pm Venue: Arts Complex, Research Space, 1.H020
|
Advancing a More Complex History of African American Medical History
The three most known events in African American medical history are the United States Public Health Syphilis Study at Tuskegee, the experimental gynecological surgeries of Dr. J. Marion Sims on enslaved women, and the use of Henrietta Lacks’ “immortal” cells without her consent or knowledge. Dr. Gamble and Dr. Stephen Kenny (University of Liverpool) will lead an interactive graduate seminar that will analyze what the field needs to do to go develop a more complex and comprehensive history of African American medical history. Refreshments provided. |
| Format: Seminar
Date/Time: Wednesday 13 March 2024, 3 – 4 pm Venue: Arts Complex, Research Space, 1.H020
|
Historical Perspectives on Health Inequities: Trust, Trustworthiness, and ‘Tuskegee’
Dr. Gamble will analyze the history of the United States Public Health at Tuskegee (more frequently called the Tuskegee Syphilis Study). She will examine the legacy of the Syphilis Study in health care and medical research in African American communities, including contemporary discussions of COVID-19. She will also discuss that a myopic focus on the impact of the Syphilis Study on African American attitudes toward medicine and public health obviates an understanding of the influence of multiple historical factors and the impact of contemporary racism. There will also be time for Q&A. Refreshments provided. |
| Format: Seminar
Date/Time: Wednesday 20 March 2024, 3 – 4 pm Venue: Arts Complex, G.H01
|
Educated in a White Space: African American Graduates of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1850-1925
During its first seventy-five years, the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania graduated eighteen African American women – more than any other predominantly white medical school in the United States. This talk will examine the lives and careers of these “sisters of a darker race” who encountered racial and sexual discrimination as they made their way in the medical world demonstrated that medicine was indeed Black women’s work. In this presentation Dr. Gamble will discuss the challenges in writing the history of Black women physicians. There will also be time for Q&A. Refreshments provided. |
