Medical diagnosis is detective work. In his book, The Family Who Couldn’t Sleep, D.T. Max unfolds a medical mystery of a noble Venetian family whose offspring suffered from fatal insomnia. Physician and New York Times columnist Lisa Sanders takes readers on a biweekly journey of medical investigation in the Diagnosis series, which inspired the hit T.V. series House MD. Academy Fellow Randi Hutter Epstein moderates a discussion with these two award-winning writers, exploring not only the mysteries behind diagnosis but the process of turning medical sleuthing into riveting narratives. About the Speakers
Are your favorite doctors and labs still covered under your Medicare plan? How about your prescriptions? NOW is the time to evaluate your health insurance at this educational event facilitated by expert Rae-Carole Fischer, licensed insurance broker, who will review the different Medicare Advantage plans as well as Medigap and drug plans. Light refreshments will be served. Co-sponsored by The Transition Network and Coming of Age NYC
RSVP Naomi Goodhart, ngoodhart@gmail.com
At first glance, the history of American warfare can often appear strangely devoid of flesh and blood. Prior to the 1960s, Hollywood shied away from graphic war wounds, and military propaganda continues to downplay war’s relentless consumption of life and limb. According to Professor John M. Kinder, however, injured bodies deserve to be moved from the margins to the center of the American war story. In this talk, Kinder explores the history of American war through the bodies of five disabled veterans. What emerges is a portrait of nation struggling (and often failing) to mitigate the human cost of military conflict.
In a conversation about her book, More Than Medicine, historian Jennifer Nelson will focus on how feminists of the ‘70s through the ‘90s applied lessons of the New Left and Civil Rights movements to generate a women’s health movement. The new movement shifted from the struggle to revolutionize health care to the focus of ending sex discrimination and gender stereotypes perpetuated in mainstream medical contexts. With renewed attacks on access to health care, contraception, and abortion, Dr. Nelson will suggest ways histories of feminist and social justice activism might provide lessons for current struggles for reproductive freedom. Following her lecture, Nelson will be joined in conversation by Sarah Seidman, Puffin Foundation Curator of Social Activism at the Museum of the City of New York. “Who Controls Women’s Health?: A Century of Struggle” is a free, three-part talk series presented by The New York Academy of Medicine and the Museum of the City of New York that examines key battles over women’s ability to control their bodies, health choices, and fertility.
Popularly known as “The War to End All Wars,” the First World War was also the war to end all disability. Determined to curtail the human and economic costs of military conflict, the United States and many other belligerent nations instituted programs of physical and vocational rehabilitation in order to make injured men whole again, so that they could fit back seamlessly into civilian society. In this talk, historian Beth Linker of the University of Pennsylvania will trace the practice and ethic of the rehabilitative model of veteran care, with an eye toward showing how it later became commodified as part of America’s ongoing commitment to pursuing a militaristic foreign policy.
Roughly one in three New Yorkers is black or Latino but only about one in 14 doctors in the Empire State hails from those communities. With med-school trends indicating the problem is getting worse, here are some ways to treat it.
Just 12 percent of Americans are sufficiently health literate. The Rx, this doctor argues, is for patients and doctors to work harder to understand each other.
