In their recently published article, Sahar Sadjadi and co-authors make the case for a more robust integration of social sciences in academic medicine.
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004649
Vulnerando sanamus - we heal by injury ... the motto of modern elective surgery above the entrance of the medical teaching centre at the University of Giessen in Germany, where Thomas Schlich gave a presentation at a symposium on “Medicine, Politics and Responsibility” to celebrate the retirement of the director of the Institute for the History, Theory, and Ethics of Medicine, Volker Roelcke, on June 21.
Annmarie Adams will give a keynote lecture on hospital architecture at a symposium on “Medical Spaces” at Universität Fribourg in July 2025.
Thomas Schlich gave a talk on the anti-surgery movement in the late 19th century at the Institute for the History, Philosophy, and Ethics of Medicine, University of Düsseldorf, Germany on June 17, 2025. The image shows an ovariotomy operation, one of the main targets of the critique of surgery at the time.
On May 22, 2025, East China Normal University Press hosted an event in Shanghai during the 24th Shanghai Social Science Popularization Week on the translation of SSoM faculty member Todd Meyers' book, The Clinic and Elsewhere, with Zhong Na, deputy chief physician of the Rehabilitation Department of the Shanghai Mental Health Center, Mei Xiao, associate professor of the School of Social Development and Public Policy of Fudan University, and Gu Xiaoqing, deputy editor of East China Normal University Press, as keynote speakers.
https://www.cbbr.com.cn/contents/533/100132.html
SSoM faculty member Todd Meyers will be in conversation with writer/editor of the Yale Review, Meghan O'Rourke, about his new book Gone Gone at the NYU Remarque Institute on May 14, 2025.
Prof Annmarie Adams delivered the 2025 John P McGovern Award Lecture on 4 May 2025 in Pasadena, which comes with a lovely medal. There was a strong McGill continent at the conference.
SSoM faculty member Todd Meyers' new book Gone Gone is a recommended reading in the New York Times, May 3, 2025. https://www.instagram.com/p/DJNK25oRvaX/?igsh=NGpxazZ3NmgzNzZl
“Bruno J. Strasser and Thomas Schlich, The Mask: A History of Breathing Bad Air”. Happy to announce that the advance copy has just come out. The book will be available starting on June 24, 2025.
We are delighted to announce that Meygan Brody (M.D., C.M. candidate, class of 2026) has been awarded a 2025 Canadian Society for the History of Medicine Hannah Studentship for her project “Goodness and Guilt: How Temperance Public Health Campaigns Shamed Children into Sobriety," under the supervision of SSoM faculty member Todd Meyers.
SSoM faculty member Todd Meyers has published a perspective essay, "Speaking of Pain," in The Lancet April 05, 2025: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)00568-9/abstract?rss=yes
SSoM faculty member Todd Meyers featured in McGill News: https://mcgillnews.mcgill.ca/sharing-the-stories-of-those-left-behind/
SSoM faculty member Todd Meyers travelled to Rollins College as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar March 26-28, 2025, which included a celebration of his new book, Gone Gone (Duke University Press, 2025).
Read a Q & A with SSoM faculty member Todd Meyers about his new book, Gone Gone!
https://dukeupress.wordpress.com/2025/03/18/qa-with-todd-meyers-author-of-gone-gone/
SSoM postdoctoral researcher Hugo Rueda gave a CHSTM talk on Wednesday 26 February "Taxonomical Clashes. Indigenous Material Culture in the Natural History Museum of Chile during the 19th century."
Abstract
The presentation analyzes the role of museum practices in the nation-state building process in Chile during the nineteenth century, highlighting their contribution to the symbolic annihilation of local indigenous communities. It argues that the National Museum of Chile reinforced the republican project of internal colonization by collecting, classifying, and exhibiting indigenous material culture under the taxonomical category of "Chilean Antiquities." To corroborate this idea, it demonstrates that the allegedly “ancient” nature of these materials is not an inherent condition but rather the result of political and intellectual maneuvers where the Museum had an active participation. During the second half of the century, Indigenous artifacts were curated to represent subjects relegated to a bygone era—simultaneously framed as “ancient,” “curious,” “monstrous,” and yet distinctly “Chilean.” By uncovering these practices, this work not only validates its hypothesis but also interrogates the enduring influence of 19th-century museum practices on contemporary Chilean institutions.
Thomas Schlich gave a zoom talk about the history of the anti-surgery movement in the Speaker Series in the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences at the Cedars-Sinai Program in the History of Medicine in Los Angeles, “”Against Human Vivisection’: Criticism of Surgery in Britain and the US, 1880s-1914.”
Professor Todd Meyers spoke with The Death Studies Podcast about his forthcoming book, Gone Gone (Duke University Press, 2025). You can listen to the podcast here: https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/todd-meyers/
The new book “Technology, Health and the Patient Consumer in the 20th Century” edited by Research Associate Rachel Elder and Department Chair Thomas Schlich has been published in the renowned series “Social Histories of Medicine”. The collected volume explores the connection between technology and consumerism in the recent history of healthcare. It is the outcome of an interdisciplinary workshop held at the Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, and SSoM, co-organized by Dr Lawrence Rosenberg.
Annmarie Adams is one of ten co-authors on this paper out today: "The Future Hospital in Global Health Systems: The Future Hospital as an Entity" in The International Journal of Health Planning and Management
Listen to Annmarie Adams and Roger Kneebone (the 2024 Osler Lecturer) discuss what buildings tell us and a whole lot more on this episode of the podcast Countercurrent.
Faculty member Todd Meyers spoke at a two-day conference, "Experiencing Loss in Contemporary Worlds: Toward an Anthropology of Grief," at the Institute of Advanced Studies of Paris on December 16-18, 2024.
Faculty member Todd Meyers has published two new book reviews:
A review of Rebecca Ayako Bennette's Diagnosing Dissent: Hysterics, Deserters, and Conscientious Objectors in Germany during World War One in Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, Vol 115 (3) September 2024.
And
A review of Frédéric Keck's How French Moderns Think: The Lévy-Bruhl Family, From “Primitive Mentality” to Contemporary Pandemics in History of Anthropology Review, November 2024.
On November 14, 2024, SSoM faculty member Todd Meyers gave a public lecture, "After the Final Word," at the Institut de Recherches Philosophiques de Lyon, Université Jean Moulin Lyon III: https://irphil.univ-lyon3.fr/conference-de-todd-meyers-after-the-final-word-apres-le-dernier-mot
In their October 6, 2024, issue, The Shanghai Review of Books published a feature interview with faculty member Todd Meyers about the Chinese translation of his book, The Clinic and Elsewhere. Link: https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_28864468
Phoebe Friesen and colleagues have been awarded a Discovery Award from the Wellcome Trust. Under the leadership of Emilie Cloatre, they will explore how unproven, disproven, or misleading health-related claims are regulated in contemporary states; examine the socio-political implications of current strategies; and imagine and propose alternative legal models. For more, see https://wellcome.org/grant-funding/people-and-projects/grants-awarded/between-deception-and-dissent-regulating-unproven
SSoM departmental postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Hugo Rueda Ramíez, has joined an advisory group of international scholars working with the Wereldmuseum Leiden (formerly known as Museum Volkenkunde), invited to address the legacies of ethnographic museums today.
Listen to Annmarie Adams in The McGill Journal of Medicine (MJM) Podcast Series, MJM MedTalks https://mjm.mcgill.ca/article/view/1138
Annmarie Adams published a paper about her own biographical relationship with her research subject, Maude Abbott, in “Maude & Me.” Women and Architectural History: The Monstrous Regiment Then and Now. Edited by Dana Arnold. London: Routledge, 42-58. https://www.routledge.com/Women-and-Architectural-History-The-Monstrous-Regiment-Then-and-Now/Arnold/p/book/9781032124582?srsltid=AfmBOopITY4lVchc3b3Ref4TzjfWjClXRDo6iydIWn_CDI_LVRxK0sVC
Faculty member Todd Meyers talks about the grief crisis hidden in the opioid crisis in a recent Op-Ed in La Presse (July 30, 2024), "La crise des surdose cache une crise de deuils". https://www.lapresse.ca/dialogue/opinions/2024-07-30/opioides/la-crise-des-surdoses-cache-une-crise-de-deuils.php
Thomas Schlich provided historical background for an article published in the MIT Technology Review on AI in the operating room. https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/07/1093338/surgical-safety-technologies-ai-black-box-surgery-operating-room/amp/
Annmarie Adams published “Shift Work: The Hospital in Histories of Architecture and Medicine,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2024) 83 (2): 134–147.
https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2024.83.2.134
Faculty member and acting department chair Todd Meyers has joined the journal Sciences Sociales et Santé as a scientific correspondent.
Annmarie Adams published a chapter on Montreal’s Scottish architects “’Glad of your help’: Scottish Architects in Montreal, 1860-1940,” Montreal's Square Mile: The Making and Transformation of a Colonial Metropole, eds Dimitry Anastakis, Elizabeth Kirkland, Don Nerbas. University of Toronto Press, 279-311. https://www.coopzone.ca/produit/1496759-montreals-square-mile-the-making-and-transformation-of-a
Thomas Schlich discussed his book project “A History of Modern Surgery” at the Research Colloquium of the Institute for the History and Ethics in Medicine of the Charité in Berlin, Germany on May 21, 2024.
On May 21, 2024, Thomas Schlich commented on a paper by Isabela Dornelas entitled “Follow the Thread: Entangled Human Tissues and Animal Fibres” at the Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science in Berlin Germany.
Faculty member Phoebe Friesen's article "A Dangerous Diagnosis: How "Excited Delirium" Shapes Police Perception" appeared in the May 21, 2024 issue of The Conversation.
Annmarie Adams curated the exhibition “Reading Abbott,” for the Osler Library, on through November 2024.
The 2024 edition of the Health Humanities Baccalaureate Programs in the US and Canada has been published with special mention of SSoM's longstanding contributions to health humanities teaching and research!
Faculty member Phoebe Friesen gave a keynote address at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy of Psychiatry, May 6, 2024, in New York City.
Annmarie Adams published the following two book reviews:
“The Architecture and Landscape of Health: A Historical Perspective on Therapeutic Places 1790–1940,” by Julie Collins, London, Routledge, 2020, Fabrications, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2024.2338032
“When Eero Met His Match,” by Eva Hagberg, Panorama: Journal of the Associations of Historians of American Art, https://journalpanorama.org/article/when-eero-met-his-match/
Thomas Schlich gave the Keynote Lecture for the workshop “Contextualizing Transplantation: Medicine, Society, and Culture”, at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore, on April 16, 2024.
Click here for more information
On April 11, 2024, at the SSoM book launch Dr Abraham Fuks discussed Janina Wellmann's new book, "Biological Motion A History of Life" (Princeton University University Press).
Thomas Schlich spoke about the introduction of elective surgery as a new concept in modern medicine and a decisive step in the history of surgery. The presentation was part of the “Swiss Seminar in the History of Medicine” which in 2023/24 is devoted to the theme “Therapeutic Approaches”. It took place at the “Chair for Medical Humanities” in Fribourg, Switzerland, March 21, 2024. The title is “The Best Therapeutic Option? ‘Elective’ Interventions and the Rise of Modern Surgery (1860s-1920s).” 2024.
Sebestian Kroupa gave a talk “On Bezoars and Other Healing Stones in Manila: Making Medical Knowledge Across Indo-Pacific Worlds, c.1700” part of Indian Ocean World Centre seminar series on 20 March, 3-5pm in Rm 116, Peterson Hall. See here for more information and abstract...
On March 14, Thomas Schlich gave a talk about the role of statistics in the rise of modern surgery under the title “Safe Surgery: Counting and the Rise of Surgery, 18th-20th centuries”. The talk will be at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin for the seminar series “Research Therapy” of the Workgroup “Practices of Validation”.
On March 7, 2024, Sahar Sadjadi, gave a lecture "Reseach on Sensitive Topics: The Case of an Ethnographic Study of Children and Gender Clinics in the US," at the University of Ottawa at the Laboratory for Engaged Research. https://www.uottawa.ca/faculty-social-sciences/events-all/research-sensitive-topics-case-ethnographic-study-children-gender-clinics-us
Annmarie Adams presented “Race and the Medical Museum: The Case of Maude Abbott,” at the College Art Association annual conference on 14 February 2024 in Chicago. https://caa.confex.com/caa/2024/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/18863.
Thomas Schlich gave a talk on February 19 entitled ’Against Human Vivisection’ – Criticism of Surgery in Britain, the US, and Germany, 1880s-1914, part of the webinar series of The Groningen Centre for Health and Humanities and the Centre for Historical Studies. All seminars are 16:00-17:00 Dutch time. Online sessions are hosted on Google Meet. Please send an e-mail to James Kennaway (James.kennaway [at] rug.nl) to receive the link. More info here: https://www.historyhealthhealing.nl/groningen-webinar-series-on-the-history-of-surgery/
New article by Jonah Campbell, Alberto Cambrosio, Mark Basik, “Histology Agnosticism: Infra-Molecularizing Disease?” in press in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (2024).
New paper by Anna K. Swartz and Phoebe Friesen: "The First Smart Pill: Digital Revolution or Last Gasp?" published in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics journal: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/917930
East China Normal University Press has announced the Chinese translation of SSoM Professor Todd Meyers's book, The Clinic and Elsewhere: Addiction, Adolescents, and the Afterlife of Therapy (U Washington Press, 2013) forthcoming later this year.
SSoM Professor and Acting Chair Todd Meyers discussed his recent book, All That Was Not Her, at the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics on January 25.
New publication in Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology by Arjun Byu and Phoebe Friesen on a controversial diagnosis - Making up monsters, redirecting blame: An examination of excited delirium. Link: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/916217
Annmarie Adams reviewed two new books on COVID and architecture for the Journal of Design History https://academic.oup.com/jdh/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jdh/epad051/752...
Annmarie Adams is one of three co-editors for an upcoming special issue of the Canadian Journal of Health History on mothering, medicine, and health. Abstracts due 31 January. CFP: https://www.utpjournals.press/journals/cjhh/call-for-papers
Annmarie Adams is Chair of this year’s committee to name the Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award. This annual prize is given by the Society of Architectural Historians to recognize the most distinguished work of scholarship in the history of architecture published by a North American scholar. Link: https://www.sah.org/jobs-and-careers/sah-awards/publication-awards
New article in Aeon by Phoebe Friesen explores whether psychedelics can teach us something about psychosis? See here: https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-psychedelic-science-teach-psychiatry-about-psychosis
On the evening of January 11, 2024, at a book launch hosted by McGill University's Maude Abbott Medical Museum, SSoM professor Annmarie Adams, along with Alexandre Klein (U Ottawa), discussed Martin Robert's new book, "Cette science nécessaire: Dissections humaines et formation médicale au Québec" (McGill-Queen's University Press). Photos: Peter Gossage
In fall 2023, Sahar Sadjadi delivered a keynote lecture, "Doing Justice: The Study of Life and Practice of Science," at Carleton University. This lecture was organized by the Faculty of Science to honour the legacy of Henrietta Lacks.
https://science.carleton.ca/cu-events/hela-celebration/
Congratulations to Alberto Cambrosio who was elected as one of the Royal Society of Canada’s New fellow to the Academy of Arts and Humanities. 
https://reporter.mcgill.ca/nineteen-mcgill-researchers-honoured-by-the- royal-society-of-canada/
On November 1, 2023, from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Redpath Museum Amphitheatre, Gordon Guyatt, MD, Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Health Research Methods, Evidence & Impact at McMaster University, delivered the 2023 Osler Lectureship, “How evidence-based medicine has – and has not – changed the world.” Ahead of his visit, Todd Meyers, PhD, from the Department of Social Studies of Medicine, spoke with Dr. Guyatt about his pioneering work in evidence-based medicine.
In conversation with Gordon Guyatt - Health e-News
