Library Programming

The Richard B. Davis, MD, PhD, History of Medicine Lectureship brings national experts to the UNMC campus to discuss the history of medicine, in support of special collections at the McGoogan Library, including rare books and works on the history of medicine. The lectureship is supported through an endowed fund given by the late Richard B. Davis, MD, PhD (1926-2010), professor emeritus of internal medicine at UNMC, and his wife, Jean. Davis supported this lectureship out of his long-standing interest in the history of medicine; he was a faculty member at UNMC from 1969-1994.

Past lectures:

April 17, 2024

Humanities as Critical Medicine: The Necessary Practice of Uncertainty, Adaptability, and Discovery
Jay Baruch, MD, Professor of Emergency Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

April 14, 2023

Negotiating Normalcy: Deafness Cures in American History
Jaipreet Virdi, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Delaware

April 22, 2022

Scientific Discovery: How Meningitis Was Conquered
Janet Gilsdorf, MD, Robert P. Kelch Research Professor Emerita in the University of Michigan Department of Pediatrics

June 29, 2021

Resuscitation: Past Beliefs and Current Clinical Trials
David B. Hoyt, MD, executive director of the American College of Surgeons

April 16, 2019

Leonardo: The Anatomist
Ron Philo, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor, Retired Senior Lecturer, Department of Cell Systems & Anatomy, UT Health San Antonio

April 10, 2018

We Have Done Just as Well as Could Be Done: Health Care Practitioners and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918
Nancy Bristow, PhD, professor at the University of the Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington

April 11, 2017

Marrow of Tragedy: Medicine in the American Civil War
Margaret Humphreys, MD, PhD, Josiah Charles Trent Professor of the History of Medicine, in the School of Medicine, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

April 4, 2016

Medicine & Madison Avenue: Pitching Drugs to Patients—and Doctors
Nancy Tomes, PhD, Distinguished Professor of History, Stony Brook University, State University of New York (SUNY)

April 23, 2015

From "Brought to Bed" to "Alone Among Strangers": Medical and Social Issues in American Childbirth History
Judith W. Leavitt, PhD, Rupple Bascom & Ruth Bleier Professor Emerita, Department of Medical History, University of Wisconsin, Madison

April 24, 2014

Grandeur Consolidated: The Original Poynter Hall in Architectural Context
Katherine L. Carroll, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey

April 14, 2013

Brief Necessarily Incomplete Overview of Blood Transfusion Throughout the Ages
Leo J. McCarthy, MD, FRCP Edin/Ire, Professor Emeritus, University of Indiana, School of Medicine Indianapolis (University of Nebraska College of Medicine Class of 1964)

March 26 2012

Race, Medicine, Authorship & the "Discovery" of Sickle Cell Disease 1910 -1911
Todd L. Savitt, PhD, Professor, Department of Bioethics & Interdisciplinary Studies, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina

April 11, 2011

The Teaching Hospital: Origins & Controversies in 18th Century London
Susan C. Lawrence, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of History, Coordinator of the Humanities in Medicine Program, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

April 6, 2010

The Coagulation Cascade Personified: A Brief History
William L. Nichols, MD, Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota

May 21, 2009

Syphilis: A 20th Century Social & Therapeutic History
Gregory Anstead, PhD, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio