By on December 2, 2013 - 9:49am
Jacalyn Duffin, MD, PhD, FRCPC, FRSC, Professor and Hannah Chair of the History of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, will present the Heberden Society Lecture onTuesday, December 10, 2013, at 5:00 p.m.
Medical Miracles: Doctors, Saints, and Healing in the Modern World
Tuesday, December 10, 2013. 5:00 p.m. (light refreshments at 4:45)
Uris Faculty Room (A-126)
Weill Cornell Medical College, 1300 York Avenue
Asked to read a set of bone marrows from a patient with leukemia, hematologist Duffin was surprised to learn that the case was being considered by the Vatican as a miracle for a canonization. The experience led her in her guise as historian to investigate 1400 miracles used for canonizing saints during the last four centuries. The results show that medicine is and has always been deeply involved in the process. It also inspired her to trace the veneration of the twin doctor saints Cosmas and Damian from their 4th century origins to the streets of Toronto in our own time.
Jacalyn Duffin, MD (Toronto), FRCP(C), PhD (Sorbonne), FRSC, a hematologist and historian, occupies the Hannah Chair of the History of Medicine at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. A former President of both the American Association for the History of Medicine and the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, she is author of eight books and holds several awards for research, writing, teaching, and service. Her most recent book is Medical Saints: Cosmas and Damian in a Postmodern World (Oxford U Press, May 2013). A revised and expanded second edition of her popular textbook for medical students appeared in 2010: History of Medicine: a Scandalously Short Introduction (U Toronto Press). She holds fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (2012) and in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2013). Her current clinical activity is in breast cancer, and she participates in an award-winning research project on music memory and dementia.
The Heberden Society, which seeks to promote an interest in the history of medicine, was founded at the medical center in 1975. With funding from the WCMC Office of the Dean, the society sponsors a series of lectures during each academic year.
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