Health and Healing in America

Our campus has the honor of hosting Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey for a town hall meeting in the May Street Auditorium, and it’s happening right at our class time on April 17. Perfect! Bonus points to anyone who asks him a question about health care policy. You might enjoy getting up to speed on what he thinks about it before his talk.

So … instead of class, let’s all meet there. I will have a clipboard with attendance, so look for me there, and enjoy the rare opportunity to hear one of your senators in person.

The event will start at 12:30 p.m., and be concluded by 2:00 p.m., in the May Street auditorium.

Best ~ Dr. Hangen

On Wed, March 27 we will discuss what replaced the 19th century doctor’s “box of blanks” by the mid-20th century. Please read and prepare to discuss Burnham Health Care in America, chapters 8 and 14.

Response #3 is due, deadline extended to midnight.

On Mon, April 1, bring your Disease Project posters to class and prepare to share and discuss your findings with your classmates.

This website serves as the hub for Tona Hangen’s history course, “Health and Healing in America,” for the Spring 2019 semester at Worcester State University. This course meets Mon/Wed at 12:30 in Sullivan 108.

The three required textbooks for this course are listed under the “Readings” tab above. In addition, each student will receive a (free) course reader.

From this website, you can download the syllabus or access it online, stay up to date with course news and any changes, see the guidelines for the course papers and projects, and follow links to recommended history and writing resources.

This site is a blog, meaning it updates frequently and therefore you should bookmark it to stay up to date with all the course news and updates. I leave up the previous semesters’ information as an archive for my past students. You can safely ignore any post tagged “Spr17” or earlier.

If you have questions about the course before we meet in person on January 23rd, please feel free to email me, at thangen (at) worcester.edu

With the University closed a second day for snow, we will not meet today (Wed 315) for class. Therefore the Disease Project poster conference will take place on Monday, Mar 27 when we return from spring break, and the Disease Project paper will be due on April 12. The syllabus has been revised to reflect the deadline adjustments and also the highly dynamic situation with health care reform, the topic of our final unit. Have an enjoyable snow day and break week!

This website serves as the hub for Tona Hangen’s history course, “Health and Healing in America,” for the Spring 2017 semester at Worcester State University. This course meets Mon/Wed at 12:30 in Sullivan 320.

The textbooks for this course are listed under the “Readings” tab above.

From this website, you can download the syllabus or access it online, stay up to date with course news and any changes, see the guidelines for the course papers and projects, and follow links to recommended history and writing resources.

This site is a blog, meaning it updates frequently and therefore you should either bookmark it or subscribe to it using an RSS feed reader (such as Feedly) to stay up to date with all the course news and updates. I leave up the previous semesters’ information as an archive for my past students. You can safely ignore any post tagged “Spr14” or earlier.

If you have questions about the course before we meet in person on January 18th, please feel free to email me, at thangen (at) worcester.edu

This website serves as the hub for Tona Hangen’s history course, “Health and Healing in America,” for the Spring 2014 semester at Worcester State University. This course will be taught as a hybrid course, partly online but with about half our time in face-to-face meetings. On those dates (see the “Schedule” tab above) we will meet in room S2-351 at UMass Medical School, Worcester MA from 5-8 pm.

The textbooks for this course are listed under the “Readings” tab above.

From this website, you can download the syllabus or access it online, stay up to date with course news and any changes, see the guidelines for the course papers and projects, and follow links to my recommended intellectual history and writing resources on the web.

This site is a blog, meaning it updates frequently and therefore you should either bookmark it or subscribe to it using an RSS feed reader (such as Feedly) to stay up to date with all the course news and updates. To subscribe, just click on the orange RSS symbol in the sidebar. I leave up the previous semesters’ information as an archive for my past students. You can safely ignore any post tagged “Spr2013” or earlier.

If you have questions about the course before we meet in person in January, please feel free to email me, at thangen (at) worcester.edu

Over the next few weeks we’ll be exploring aspects of health care in the twentieth century: the post-Flexner, vaccine-and-antibiotic era in which a gigantic industry of health care began to flourish – and during which the medical profession’s opposition to centralized health care emerged with a vengeance.

For Wednesday, April 3rd – your Disease Report papers are due, but also: please bring Rutkow’s book and be ready to talk about chapters 8 and 9.

Relevant links:

A (hilariously campy) British government 1964 film looking back on the 1940s discovery of penicillin

See Jack Gibbon’s heart-lung machine in action (BBC Four)

Hear Ronald Reagan in his 10 minute LP recording from the AMA’s “Operation Coffee Cup” 1961 lobbying effort (never mind the images, just listen to the recording)

Listen to the 1948 “Truth or Consequences” episode introducing the original “Jimmy” of the Jimmy Fund

Next week we’ll read a short, but gripping, historical and medical detective book delving into the abandoned suitcases of inmates (is that the right word?) at a big New York mental hospital in the 1920s-1950s. I think you’ll really enjoy reading it and considering its thought-provoking depiction of care for the mentally ill. Read chapters 1-6 of The Lives They Left Behind for Monday, April 8th and Chapters 7-Epilogue for Wednesday, April 10th. I’ll then hand out a prompt for the third response paper, due on Wed 4/17.

Summing up your #1 takeaway from Michael Willrich, Pox: An American History:

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