Progress in complementary and alternative medicine research: Yale Research Symposium on Complementary and Integrative Medicine

Integrative Medicine at Yale and the Yale Center for Continuing Medical Education (CME) sponsored the Yale Research Symposium on Complementary and Integrative Medicine in March 2010 at the university's School of Medicine. Delivering the keynote address, Dr. Josephine P. Briggs, Director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), highlighted recent progress made in the field of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).     

Putting together the pieces of polio: how Dorothy Horstmann helped solve the puzzle

Dr. Dorothy Horstmann, epidemiologist, virologist, clinician, and educator, was the first woman appointed as a professor at the Yale School of Medicine. Horstmann made significant contributions to the fields of public health and virology, her most notable being the demonstration that poliovirus reached the central nervous system via the bloodstream, upsetting conventional wisdom and paving the way for polio vaccines. In 1961, she was appointed a professor at Yale School of Medicine, and in 1969, she became the first woman at Yale to receive an endowed chair, which was named in honor of her mentor, Dr. John Rodman Paul. In this review, the major scientific contributions of Dr. Dorothy Horstmann will be highlighted from her more than 50-year tenure at Yale School of Medicine.     

The 2007 Anatomy Ceremony: A Service of Gratitude: II: Poems and Meditations

Yale University medical and PA students, classes of 2010 and 2008 respectively, express their gratitude in a compilation of reflections on learning human anatomy. In coordination with the Section of Anatomy and Experimental Surgery at the School of Medicine, the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine encourages you to hear the stories of the body as narrated by the student.     

Reflections on a Life in Biomedicine: Leading Change

Dr. Elizabeth Nabel delivered the following presentation as the Lee E. Farr Lecturer on May 7, 2013, which served as the culmination of the annual Student Research Day at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Nabel is President of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her lecture to Yale medical students portrayed her own personal and professional journey through medicine as a series of opportunities. Dr. Nabel focused on the roles and responsibilities of physicians to recognize need and to make change through focused advocacy.     

Defining health activism: from MADD to mad activists: health activism in the 20th century

Health Activism in the 20th Century: A History of Medicine Symposium at Yale University School of Medicine in October 2010 highlighted a variety of issues concerning the social history of medicine, including race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. A watershed moment in a burgeoning interdisciplinary field, this symposium could pave the way for extensive future discourse.     

"C.-E.A. Winslow and the early years of public health at Yale, 1915-1925"

C.-E.A. Winslow was the first chairman of the Department of Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine. This paper considers the development and changing agenda of his department, the structure of Yale University, and the maturation of public health as a discipline. Winslow's successes and failures are discussed as they relate to Yale and external societal influences.     

The birth of chemotherapy at Yale. Bicentennial lecture series: Surgery Grand Round

Chemotherapy, one of the mainstays of cancer treatment today, was pioneered at Yale during World War II. Last year, two Yale surgeons, Drs. John Fenn and Robert Udelsman, sought to unearth the mystery surrounding the discovery of chemotherapy and its first use at Yale. The first chemotherapy patient is known only as JD in the literature, and without a name, date of birth, or medical record number, a search for his record seemed futile. However, persistence coupled with sheer fortune led them to JD's chart, where they found information that differed from previous accounts. The riveting personal story of JD, an immigrant patient with lymphosarcoma, was revealed for the first time by Drs. Fenn and Udelsman on January 19, 2011, at a special Surgical Grand Rounds celebrating the bicentennial of Yale School of Medicine.     

The Global Crisis of Malaria: Report on a Yale Conference

An international conference, “The Global Crisis of Malaria: Lessons of the Past and Future Prospects,” met at Yale University, November 7-9, 2008. The symposium was organized by Professor Frank Snowden and sponsored by the Provost’s office, the MacMillan Center, the Program in the History of Science and History of Medicine, and the Section of the History of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. It brought together experts on malaria from a variety of disciplines, countries, and experiences — physicians, research scientists, historians of medicine, public health officials, and representatives of several non-governmental organizations (NGOs). An underlying theme was that much could be gained from a big-picture examination across disciplinary frontiers of the contemporary public health problem caused by malaria. Particular features of the conference were its intense scrutiny of historical successes and failures in malaria control and its demonstration of the relevance of history to policy discussions in the field.     

Advances in ovarian cancer screening: health and medicine for women: a multidisciplinary, evidence-based review of mid-life health concerns

Early detection is imperative for improving survival from ovarian cancer, the leading cause of death from gynecological cancer in the United States. At the Health and Medicine for Women continuing medical education (CME) conference at Yale in September 2010, Dr. Gil Mor, a researcher in the Department of OB/GYN at Yale, presented recent advances on the pathophysiology of ovarian cancer. These advances, and particularly our growing understanding of cancer stem cells, may help overcome the limitations of current ovarian cancer detection and treatment methods.     

The Yale Affiliated Hospital Program in Internal Medicine

In July, 1975, the Departments of Internal Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine and eight community hospitals in southern and western Connecticut formed the Yale Affiliated Hospital Program (YAHP) in Internal Medicine. The YAHP provides a planned and focused program of continuing education for medical staff and housestaff at the affiliated hospitals. Six formats for the over 1,000 rounds, lectures, and conferences given annually are used. The members of the YAHP also cooperate in housestaff and faculty recruiting, evaluation of quality of care and evaluation of the process of continuing medical education itself. This report summarizes the organization, goals and future plans of the YAHP.     

Reflections of a member of the bicentennial class on the Bicentennial Symposium

This perspective piece explores what it means to be a first-year medical student at Yale School of Medicine during its bicentennial year. At first, it seemed like a hefty burden to bear. However, upon listening to Dr. Eric Kandel speak at the Bicentennial Symposium at Yale on April 28, 2011, it became clear what it means to be a part of the future of science and medicine at Yale.     

A brief report: Yale Research Symposium on Complementary and Integrative Medicine

The 2010 Yale Research Symposium on Complementary and Integrative Medicine highlighted original research in related areas by Yale faculty and provided a forum to discuss and debate issues of evidence and plausibility. In this brief report, we describe selected presentations on such diverse foci as nutritional influences on cancer, acupuncture for low back pain, protein intake's effects on bone consumption, Chinese herb-derived adjuvant chemotherapy, and the relationship between anger and cardiac arrhythmia. This symposium demonstrated that rigorous research methods are being used to study unconventional therapies and that an integrative medicine approach requires a solid scientific foundation.     

How ultrasound first came to new England

Diagnostic ultrasound came to Yale in the 1960s and was first developed in Glasgow and London. This story tells us that ultrasound was well-established in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine in the Yale-New Haven Hospital by 1970. By then it had caught up with the pioneers in New York, Denver, and even Glasgow.     

333 Cedar Street: an oral history. A chapter in the history of contemporary medicine

This paper contains excerpts and colloquies selected from interviews which will appear in a proposed book-length oral history of the Yale University School of Medicine. The book, which considers all the constituent members of the Yale academic medical community, is a statement about contemporary issues in medicine. Owing to space constraints, only excerpts from students appear in this paper. It is believed that these selections may be used as case studies to explore in depth issues of contemporary medical interest. The excerpts have been categorized into eight thematic clusters considering different aspects of premedical and medical school life.     

Yellow ooze

This is a piece from the annual Yale Internal Medicine Residency Program's Writers' Workshop, which began in 2003. Abraham Verghese and Richard Selzer, among the best known physician-writers in the United States, have served as workshop leaders, teaching the craft of writing to more than 35 residents. In designing the workshop, Anna B. Reisman, assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine and VA Connecticut Health Care System, and Dr. Asghar Rastegar had the goal of making participants better physicians by providing a creative outlet for reflection.The stories and essays written by the Writers' Workshop participants present a range of experiences, real and imagined, and take readers deep into the minds of young doctors trying to make sense of what they do.     

The apology

This is the second issue featuring a selected piece from the Yale Internal Medicine Residency Program's Writers' Workshop. The annual workshop began in 2003. Abraham Verghese and Richard Selzer, among the best known physician-writers in the United States, have served as workshop leaders, teaching the craft of writing to more than 35 residents. In designing the workshop, Anna B. Reisman, assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine and VA Connecticut Health Care System, and Dr. Asghar Rastegar had the goal of making participants better physicians by providing a creative outlet for reflection.The stories and essays written by the Writers' Workshop participants present a range of experiences, real and imagined, and take readers deep into the minds of young doctors trying to make sense of what they do.     

History of the Department of Cell Biology at Yale School of Medicine, 1813-2010

The Department of Cell Biology at the Yale University School of Medicine was established in 1983. It was preceded by the Section of Cell Biology, which was formed in 1973 when George E. Palade and collaborators came to Yale from the Rockefeller University. Cell Biology at Yale had its origins in the Department of Anatomy that existed from the beginning of classes at the Medical Institution of Yale College in 1813. This article reviews the history of the Department of Anatomy at Yale and its evolution into Cell Biology that began with the introduction of histology into the curriculum in the 1860s. The formation and development of the Section and Department of Cell Biology in the second half of the 20th century to the present time are described. Biographies and research activities of the chairs and key faculty in anatomy and cell biology are provided.     

An update on hormone replacement therapy: health and medicine for women: a multidisciplinary, evidence-based review of mid-life health concerns

The Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the Yale School of Medicine hosted a daylong continuing medical education (CME) symposium titled "Health and Medicine for Women: A Multidisciplinary, Evidence-Based Review of Mid-Life Health Concerns" in September 2010. A number of speakers discussed current research on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and re-evaluated the results of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a landmark, randomized, placebo-controlled trial that still sparks debate almost a decade after its conclusion. This article summarizes this discussion and highlights directions for future study.     

The early years of coeducation at the Yale University School of Medicine.

The Yale School of Medicine began accepting women as candidates for the degree of medicine in the fall of 1916. This decision was consistent with the trend in medical education at the time. While Yale was not the first prestigious Eastern medical school to admit women, joining Johns Hopkins (1893) and the University of Pennsylvania (1914), it was not one of the last. Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons admitted women a year later, but Harvard Medical School held out until 1945. The years 1916--1920 saw the number of women enrolled in medical school almost double. Yale''s decision to admit women seems to have been made with little resistance from the faculty. The final decision was made through the encouragement and financial help of Henry Farnam, a professor of economics at Yale, who agreed to pay for the women''s bathrooms. His daughter, Louise, was in the first class of women. At graduation she was awarded the highest scholastic honors, the Campbell Gold Prize. From Yale she travelled to the Yale-sponsored medical school in Changsha, China, where she became the first female faculty member, a position she held for twelve years. The impressions of Ella Clay Wakeman Calhoun, the only woman to graduate in the second class of women, are presented here. Since 1916 the Yale School of Medicine has undergone extensive physical and philosophical changes, developments in which women have participated.     

C.-E.A. Winslow and the later years of public health at Yale, 1940-1945

This paper is one of a series of papers in which I consider contemporary Yale medical education in general and the Yale Department of Epidemiology and Public Health in particular. It tells of the retirement in 1945 of C.-E.A. Winslow, Professor and Chairman of the Yale Department of Public Health since its inception in 1915; of the committees established by the dean of the School of Medicine and the president of the University, charged with determining the future direction of the department; and of the outcome, which, in 1945, proved favorable to Winslow's public health philosophy in contrast to the medical school's clinical needs and desires.