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American Association for the History of Medicine

Call for Papers, 2004 Annual Meeting

The American Association for the History of Medicine invites submissions in any area of medical history for its 77th annual meeting, to be held in Madison, Wisconsin, 28 April-2 May 2004. The Association welcomes papers on topics related to the history of health and healing; of medical ideas, practices, and institutions; and of illness, disease, and public health, from all eras and regions of the world. In addition to single-paper proposals, the program committee welcomes proposals for sessions and luncheon workshops; individual papers for those sessions will be judged on their own merits.

All papers must represent original work not already published or in press. Because the Bulletin of the History of Medicine is the official journal of the AAHM, the Association encourages speakers to make their manuscripts available for consideration by the Bulletin.

Please send eight copies of a one-page abstract (350 words maximum) to either of the Program Committee Co-Chairs: Barron H. Lerner, M.D., Ph.D., Columbia University, 630 West 168th Street, Box 11, New York, NY 10032-3702, or Arleen M. Tuchman, Ph.D., History Department, Vanderbilt University, Box 1802-B, Nashville, TN 37235. Abstracts should clearly state findings and conclusions as well as research questions. They should also provide the following information on the same sheet: name, preferred mailing address, work and home telephone numbers, e-mail address, present institutional affiliation, and academic degrees. Abstracts must be received by 15 September 2003. E-mail or faxed proposals will not be accepted.

In Memoriam

John F. Hutchinson (1938-2002)

The editors regret to inform our readers of the death in May 2002 of John Hutchinson, Ph.D., Professor of History at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. His books included Champions of Charity: War and the Rise of the Red Cross (1996) and Late Imperial Russia: 1890-1917 (1999).

Barbara Bates (1928-2002)

Always Early. . . . Truly great thinkers who are compassionate and generous are indeed a rarity, but these qualities were embodied in Dr. Barbara Bates, who died on 18 December 2002 after a long illness. Many in the American Association for the History of Medicine, and the medical and nursing professions in general, recognized Barbara for her keen scholarship and analytical abilities—all infused with a gentle humor, and always ahead of the times.

Barbara is perhaps best known for her innovative book, A Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking, first published in 1974 and continuing under her direction for seven editions. The text was groundbreaking for several reasons—it demystified the process of clinical thinking for novices, and it provided clear explanations and exceptional numbers of illustrative drawings and photographs. Barbara keenly understood the critical need for this type of instructional text for both physicians and nurses, but she believed that nurses in particular needed this knowledge. Comfortable with all levels of students, she would tell sophomore nursing students that listening and history taking accounted for 95 percent of the clinical thinking process. Barbara considered nurses particularly good at these skills, and it was time, as she noted in 1973, that "we [physicians] learn to share. . . ."

Barbara was an early advocate and activist for collaborative practice, and one of the earliest proponents of the nurse practitioner movement. She clearly identified the access-to-care dilemmas that already existed at mid-century, and understood the need for new and different models of health care and health provider behavior. She wrote about these subjects throughout her career—from her time at Cornell in the mid-1950s, where she taught medical students about comprehensive care, to her tenure at the University of Kentucky in 1961, and later at the University of Rochester, where she was instrumental in the founding of the School of Nursing, as well as the nurse practitioner program. At the University of Missouri in Kansas City, she joined an innovative medical school program to train physicians for rural Missouri. In 1981 she completed...