The Chair in the History of Medicine at Queen's University has been funded since 1975 by resources provided by Associated Medical Services Incorporated/Hannah Institute (AMS). It is named in honour of the latter's founder Jason A. Hannah, M.D. (Queen's, 1928). In 2000, it was fully endowed through a generous donation from AMS.
The Chair is located in the Faculty of Health Sciences, but it is linked through the professor's cross-appointments and teaching to the Faculties of Arts and Science, Graduate Studies, Education, and Law.
Programs offered by the chair include a historical course of study for medical students, elective courses, a faculty seminar, undergraduate arts courses, graduate courses, graduate counselling, references or bibliographic assistance to individuals, guest lectures by visiting scholars, displays of books and artefacts, and the acquisition of historical works suited to the research interests of members of the Queen's community. The Chair supports local initiatives such as the Museum of Health Care and the Kingston Historical Society.
Current Chair
Dean Richard Reznick is pleased to announce that Benoit-Antoine Bacon, Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) at Queen’s University, has appointed Dr. Jenna Healey as the Jason A. Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, for a five-year period beginning August 1, 2017.
Dr. Healey received her PhD from the Program in the History of Science and Medicine at Yale University. Prior to Yale, she earned her Master of Arts from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto, and her Bachelor of Arts and Sciences from the University of Guelph.
Dr. Healey’s research focuses on the intersection of twentieth-century medicine, gender, technology, and health policy. Dr. Healey’s current book project, On Time: Age, Technology, and Reproduction in Modern America, explores the temporal politics of reproduction through a history of the so-called biological clock.
In 2015, she received the H.N. Segall Prize from the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine. This award was followed by the George Washington Egleston Historical Prize from Yale and the Alice Wilson Award from the Royal Society of Canada, both in 2016.
Before coming to Queen’s, Dr. Healey was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow in the History Department at York University. She was also a lecturer at Yale University, where she taught seminars in Money and Medicine, the History of Human Experimentation, and Historical Perspectives on Gender and Technology.
At Queen’s, Dr. Healey will be situated in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, with a cross-appointment in the Faculty of Arts and Science’s Department of History.
Publications
Jacalyn Duffin, History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction
University of Toronto Press
First edition 1999; Second revised & expanded edition 2010