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  • Image of SMH Interfaith Chapel - Light Jazz Music with Bob Pizzutiello Mar 19

    Rochester jazz artist Bob Pizzutiello will to share light jazz music on the Chapman stick. - On Thursday March 19th from 2:0pm-3:00pm, Bob Pizzutiello will share about the music he is offering as he brings relaxing jazz music to our chapel. 

    Every Thursday the chapel hosts live music which streams to patient TVs on channel 1 and is open to all to attend in person, entering and leaving as you need to. This music series is made possible in part from a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Chaplaincy, and Eastman Performing Arts Medicine Center. 

     

  • photo of presenter Mar 25

    Ayah Nuriddin is Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine at Yale University. She is a historian of medicine and biology with particular interests in the histories of eugenics, racial science, scientific racism, reproduction, and human subjects research. Prior to arriving at Yale, she was a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows and Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and African American Studies at Princeton University. She received her PhD in the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in 2021. She is currently working on her first book tentatively entitled “Seed and Soil: Black Eugenic Thought in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.” It examines how African Americans navigated questions of racial science, eugenics, and hereditarianism in relation to struggles for racial justice in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her work has been published in the Historical Studies of Natural Science, Journal for the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, the Lancet, Nursing Clio, and Somatosphere, and she has appeared on American History TV on C-Span.

     

    Her dissertation, entitled “Liberation Eugenics: African Americans and the Science of Black Freedom Struggles, 1890-1970,” analyzes African American engagement with eugenics, hereditarian thought, and racial science as part of a broader strategy of racial improvement and black liberation. She holds a Masters in History and Masters of Library Science (MLS) from the University of Maryland, College Park. She was a Graduate Fellow in the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine in 2017-2018, and a Dissertation Fellow at the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (CHSTM) in 2018-2019.

  • Image of SMH Interfaith Chapel - Eastman Schola Cantorum sings music of Hildegard of Bingen Mar 26

    The Schola Cantorum from the Eastman School of Music is directed by Prof Stephen Kennedy and focuses on music of plainsong, motets of the Renaissance and Romantic eras, as well as contemporary music and improvisation. The group has been featured in various national radio broadcasts, appeared in international festivals and concerts, and collaborated with ensembles such as the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble and Ensemble Weser-Renaissance Bremen.  The Schola has recorded for the Arsis and Loft labels.

    On Thursday March 26th, they will be led by Prof Honey Meconi and will share a program of the music of St. Hildegard of Bingen,a 12th century scholar, poet, and composer, in the Interfaith Chapel of Strong Memorial Hospital. 

    Every Thursday the chapel hosts live music which streams to patient TVs on channel 1 and is open to all to attend in person, entering and leaving as you need to. This music series is made possible in part from a National Endowment for the Arts grant, URMC Chaplaincy, and Eastman Performing Arts Medicine Center

  • photo of presenter Apr 2

    **TAG HUMANITIES**

     

    HIV. Ebola. COVID-19—Three very different viruses with different trajectories and even more divergent outcomes. What links these epidemics together, however, is the recurrent theme of blame directed towards entire ethnoracial groups as an etiological explanation for deadly diseases and their spread. This presentation explores racialized blame in times of epidemic uncertainty, and interrogates the role of public health institutions in perpetuating this age-old phenomenon.

     

    Elizabeth Adetiba (she/her) is an early career researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of Rochester. Dr. Adetiba earned her PhD in Sociology from Columbia University, where she specialized in historical sociology, science, knowledge, and technology, and medical sociology. Her research career extends from the U.S., to South Africa, to New Zealand, where she was a 2018 U.S. Fulbright Fellow. Her work has also been supported by National Science Foundation. Above all, Dr. Adetiba is a critical writer, having worked as a journalist and fact-checker prior to pursuing her doctoral studies. Her writing has been featured in HuffPost, Slate, The Nation, Salon, SB Nation, and The Black Youth Project, and you can find her most recent public articles here. Dr. Adetiba’s work investigates how historical constructions of Blackness—and more so anti-Blackness— shape scientific thinking across a range of social domains, from medical and epidemiological scholarship, to athletics, to intergovernmental organizations. Her current book project explores the presence of anti-Black sentiment in the medical scholarship concerning the origins of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and its widespread impact on global AIDS policy.

     

    https://urmc.zoom.us/j/96878868372?pwd=OEtVZVdNLzZiallVY2pIS2xnSVF6dz09 ;
    Passcode: 807980

    12pm EDT
     
  • Image of SMH Interfaith Chapel - Guitar Music with Kenneth Kam Apr 2

    Eastman alum Kenneth Kam will to share music for the guitar, ranging from classical to folk music. - On Thursday April 2nd from 2:0pm-3:00pm, Kenneth Kam will play the guitar and share about the music he is offering.

    Every Thursday the chapel hosts live music which streams to patient TVs on channel 1 and is open to all to attend in person, entering and leaving as you need to. This music series is made possible in part from a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Chaplaincy, and Eastman Performing Arts Medicine Center. 

  • Image of SMH Interfaith Chapel - Guitar Music with Ken Luk Apr 9

    Eastman alum Ken Luk will to share music for the guitar, ranging from classical to folk music. - On Thursday April 9th from 2:0pm-3:00pm, Ken Luk will play the guitar and share about the music he is offering.

    Every Thursday the chapel hosts live music which streams to patient TVs on channel 1 and is open to all to attend in person, entering and leaving as you need to. This music series is made possible in part from a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Chaplaincy, and Eastman Performing Arts Medicine Center. 

     

  • Image of Corner Society for the History of Medicine: Case Notes: Art History's Medical Imaginaries Apr 15

    "Tag Humanities"

     

    How have art and medicine converged historically, and how do they do so today? This talk centers on the work of Black diaspora artists, tracking art history's medical imaginaries and the stories they help us narrate about how health, well-being, and care connect us.

     

    Anna Arabindan-Kesson is an immigrant writer and curator. A former nurse, she later completed a PhD in African American Studies and Art History at Yale University. She holds the position of Associate Professor of Black Diasporic Art at Princeton University, is the director of Art Hx, a platform for exploring art and medicine, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. 

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George Washington Corner Society for the History of Medicine 2025 - 2026 Lecture Schedule


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"Routine Genome Sequencing of Newborns: Who, What, When, How"

Ellen Wright Clayton, MD, JD - Professor, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Flyer for the event

 

 Sep 03, 2026 @ 12:00 p.m.

 School of Medicine and Dentistry | SMD Large Aud. (2-6424)

Personal and Professional Identity at the Bedside: Reflections on Medical Aid in Dying

Poster for the event

 Jul 28, 2026 @ 11:00 a.m.

 Medical Center | K207 (2-6408)

Host: Department of Health Humanities & Bioethics

George Washington Corner Society for the History of Medicine: "Case Notes: Art History’s Medical Imaginaries"

Anna Arabindan-Kesson, PhD - Associate Professor, Princeton University

 Apr 15, 2026 @ 5:30 p.m.

 Rochester Academy of Medicine | 

George Washington Corner Society for the History of Medicine: "Black Eugenics and the Struggle for Equality"

Ayah Nuriddin, PhD - Assistant Professor, Yale University

 Mar 25, 2026 @ 5:30 p.m.

 Rochester Academy of Medicine | 

George Washington Corner Society for the History of Medicine: "Who’s in Whose Pocket? ReferenceTools, Industry Interests, and the Quest for Therapeutic Reform"

Andrew Lea, MD, D. Phil. - Assistant Professor, University of Rochester

 Feb 25, 2026 @ 5:30 p.m.

 Rochester Academy of Medicine | 

"A Matter of Materials: Toy Safety from 1950 to 2025"

Alex Parry, PhD - Assistant Professor, University of Rochester

This presentation examines how the measurable and perceived safety of different materials has influenced the market for commercial toys since the 1950s. Applying historical methods to the economic, technical, and political problem of risky toys, this talk documents the ways successive generations of wood, plastic, and metal toys have changed the types, frequency, and severity of toy-related injuries.

 Feb 19, 2026 @ 12:00 p.m.

 School of Medicine and Dentistry | Large SMD Auditorium 2-6424

Hybrid event: passcode 807980

"Can Medical Ethics Education Shape Competent, Resilient, and Patient-Centered Physicians?"

Angira Patel, MD, MPH - Pediatric & Fetal Cardiologist, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

This talk will examine how medical ethics and humanities education can help develop clinically skilled, empathetic, and ethically responsible physicians. We will discuss existing medical education ethics program, including a unique two-year ethics certificate program for trainees, and explore current challenges in ethics teaching and opportunities for improvement.

 Feb 05, 2026 @ 12:00 p.m.

 School of Medicine and Dentistry | Large SMD Auditorium 2-6424

Hybrid Event: passcode 807980

"Tangled Webs: Communication, Facts, and Knowledge in the Age of Misinformation"

Laura Whitebell, PhD - Associate Professor of Writing, University of Rochester Medical Center

This talk provides an overview of the topic of misinformation and discusses possible strategies for navigating today’s overwhelming flow of information.

At the conclusion of this presentation participants should be able to: identify different kinds of false information, analyze how information spreads, recognize why people may be susceptible to false claims, and apply critical thinking strategies to evaluate sources, verify claims, and make informed decisions when engaging with contested information.

View Flyer

 Jan 29, 2026 @ 12:00 p.m.

 School of Medicine and Dentistry | Large Auditorium (2-6424)