History and Philosophy of Medicine

Our Department has three components:

Teaching in the history of medicine began at KU when Logan Clendening, internist, popular author on medical subjects, and ardent bibliophile took up a full-time position as historian of medicine in 1939. Since that time, the Department has grown around Clendening’s collection of rare books, which has expanded to include almost 30,000 texts related to the history of medicine and bioethics and approximately sixty journals.

In 1986 a clinical ethicist, the late Bill Bartholome, joined historian and clinician Robert Hudson, who served as Chair from 1968 to 1994. From 1995-2002 Robert Martensen served as Chair. In 1997 Jerry Menikoff, who has training in law, medicine, and ethics, arrived, as did Martha Montello, who has training in literature and works in narrative ethics. In 1998 Christopher Crenner, a generalist physician with doctoral training in history of science, joined the faculty. In 2002 Christopher Crenner was appointed Interim Chair.

Currently, the faculty teaches medical students as part of a required sequence of courses for first, second, third, and fourth year students. These interdisciplinary courses combine clinical training in history taking and physical diagnosis with didactic and small-group sessions concerning some social dimensions of illness, medical practice, and medical institutions. Also, Dr. Menikoff teaches research ethics in the graduate school. Additionally, faculty offer electives in literature and medicine (Montello), history (Crenner), medicine in the movies (Crenner), and law and bioethics (Menikoff at the Law School in Lawrence).

The Department also includes the KUMC Archives, which are directed by historian Nancy Hulston, who also oversees the Museum. In addition to performing archival services for KUMC, Nancy and Matt Scanlon mount several exhibitions per year, some of which travel to remote locations.

Glenda Gochenour serves as Administrative Officer of the Department, and Sally Heaston serves as Administrative Assistant.

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