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!