History Center Events

Fall 2023 Nursing History Forums (All Virtual)
Sept. 12, 2023 at 12 p.m. (ET)
"Hospital City, Health Care Nation: Race, Capital, and the Costs of American Health Care"
Guian McKee, PhD
Zoom link:
https://virginia.zoom.us/j/95756992198?pwd=TEZQNmVjOGxENmdCUlZFUGtWa3Ztdz09
Meeting ID: 957 5699 2198; Passcode: 355573
Dr. Guian McKee will speak about his new book, Hospital City, Health Care Nation, which recasts the story of the U.S. health care system by emphasizing its economic, social, and medical importance in American communities. Focusing on urban hospitals and academic medical centers, the book argues that the country’s high level of health care spending has allowed such institutions to become vital economic anchors for communities. Yet that spending has also constrained possibilities for comprehensive health care reform over many decades. At the same time, the role of hospitals in urban renewal, in community health provision, and as employers of low-wage workers has contributed directly to racial health disparities. McKee points to the increased role of financial capital after the 1960s in shaping not only hospital growth but also the underlying character of these vital institutions. The book shows how hospitals’ quest for capital has interacted with structural racism and inequality to constrain the U.S. health care system.
Dr. McKee is a professor of presidential studies at the UVA Miller Center. He is co-chair of the Presidential Recordings Program and co-directs its Health Care Policy Project. His 2023 book, Hospital City, Health Care Nation, is available through the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Oct. 24, 2023 at 12 pm: Angela Xia
Angela Xia is a scholar of religion and health in the modern U.S. and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation, “The Rest of Life: Care and Aging in American Churches, 1970-2000," offers the first historical account of how American religious leaders, educators, and care providers took up age as a matter of shared concern in the latter half of the 20th century. Her research has been supported by the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, the Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, and the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine.
Nov. 14, 2023 at 12 pm: Jess Dillard-Wright, PhD, MA, RN, CNM
Jess Dillard-Wright is an assistant professor in the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing at the University of Massachusetts. She is a recent recipient of the Barbara Brodie Nursing History Fellowship from the Bjoring Center.
More program details coming soon!
"History and Memory of Filipino Nurses in U.S. Health-Care Delivery" by Catherine Ceniza Choy, PhD, recipient of the 2023 Agnes Dillon Randolph Award (April 2023)
"Medicine of Care: Oral History of Nurse Practitioners in New York State" by Morag Martin, PhD (March 2023)
"Black Nurses’ Silent Struggle to Integrate Hospital Nursing in the North, 1950-1970" by Hafeeza Anchrum, PhD, RN (Nov. 2022)
"Understanding the Experiences of Male Nurse Practitioners, 1980 to Present" by Marcus D. Henderson, MSN, RN (Oct. 2022)
"A Virtual Roundtable on the History of Black Midwives" with Wangui Muigai, PhD; Michelle Drew, DNP, MPH, CNM, FNP-C, C-EFM; and Gertrude Fraser, PhD (Feb. 2022). Download the History of Black Midwives Roundtable transcript.
Program: "Ancient Wisdom, Resistance and Reclamation: The Historical Contributions of African and African American Midwives 1619 to the Present" - by Michelle Drew, DNP, MPH, CNM, FNP-C, C-EFM
"Trust, Training, and Tradition: Black Midwifery in the Early 20th Century" - by Wangui Muigai, PhD
"African American Doulas: Carrying on the Tradition, Navigating Spaces of Care and Exploitation" - by Gertrude J. Fraser, PhD
For a recording of any of these talks, please contact the Bjoring Center's program manager.
View the 2022 Randolph Conference Program and 2022 Randolph Conference Program Abstracts from our international event, held virtually in March 2022.
Black Midwives: A History Forum