I believe the medical humanities are not solely an academic discipline, but a mechanism for achieving health justice

Ella Castanier (COL’24)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, I found the medical humanities when I took Dr. Lakshmi Krishnan’s course “Pandemics: Texts and Contexts” surveying the history and literature of pandemics from the medieval period through the present. With a hesitancy to draw one to one comparisons between history and the present, I found that the arc of a pandemic often follows the same contours and patterns. Furthermore, the history of minoritized populations directly influences their contemporary care outcomes. This led me to pursue research on Black physicians during the 1918 influenza pandemic which I continued in various iterations through research fellowships, conference presentations, and my minor capstone.

Pairing the medical humanities minor with a major in history allowed me to pursue education in medical history, a field that does not formally exist at Georgetown, while learning from disciplines that are not traditionally included in historical training. Dr. Sylvia Önder’s “Intro to Medical Anthropology” problematized the biomedical lens through which I approached my work. Dr. Timothy Newfield’s “Global Health History” foregrounded the importance of historians working directly with biologists, epidemiologists, and other basic scientists. And Dr. Joel de Lara’s “Ethics of AI and Health” bolstered my interest in incorporating ethics into my historical practice. This coursework culminated in my senior thesis, “Black Psychiatrists and Their Discontents: An Intellectual History of Physician-Activists During the Civil Rights Period,” which was co-advised by Dr. Maurice Jackson in the Department of History and Dr. Krishnan from the Medical Humanities Initiative.

I currently work at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine where I learn daily from physicians and public health professionals about the current healthcare landscape. This fall, I will begin an MSc in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology at the University of Oxford. My proposed dissertation will explore the advent of assisted reproductive technologies within queer communities in the United States and Britain.

I believe the medical humanities are not solely an academic discipline, but a mechanism for
achieving health justice. I view my research, and medical history writ large, as integral to
addressing contemporary health disparities.