In the Same Vein

With co-host Diana Herrmann - family medicine physician and Health Humanities and Bioethics master's student - we speak to historian Helen Frisby, primarily about her chapter "Smelling Death" in the book Religion, Death and the Senses (2024). In this episode, we explore the smellscapes of Victorian funeral rituals, discussing olfactory experiences as diverse as funerary cakes, bee hives and beeswax candles, decaying corpses, and rosemary sprigs. We talk about how smell can be a fleeting memento mori, as it is tied incredibly strongly to memory and nostalgia. We also discuss what we might learn about ourselves and about how we deal with death by looking at (and smelling with) the past.

This discussion - co-hosted by undergraduate Bioethics and Psychology double major Nanki Nagpaul - dives into the ethical quandaries of AI pediatric therapy chatbots. We do this with Dr. Bryanna Moore, focusing most on her recent article (co-authored with Jonathan Herington and Şerife Tekin), "The Integration of Artificial Intelligence-Powered Psychotherapy Chatbots in Pediatric Care: Scaffold or Substitute?" We also discuss Dr. Moore's Psychology Today column, "A Therapist in Every Pocket: Why Access Isn't Everything." Using these pieces as starting points, we talk with Dr. Moore about the potential risks and rewards of this type of technology, the unique needs of children, and what we don't know about the role of AI in mental health care for both adults and children.

We go philosophical in this episode, co-hosted by Ashley Labodda, a Philosophy PhD student at the University of Rochester. We have a discussion that is largely focused on David DeGrazia’s 2021 book A Theory of Bioethics, co-authored with Joseph Millum, PhD. We speak about what new elements and approaches this book brings to the field of bioethics, as well as how many of these ideas apply to philosophy and to ethics beyond bioethics. 

This episode - co-hosted with medical student Priya Mandava - features physician and author Jay Baruch. We take his 2022 book Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Journey through Constraints and Creativity in the ER as our starting point to then discuss narrative and emergency medicine, the role of the humanities in medical education, chaos narratives and patient stories, and the role of compassion in medicine.  

In this episode, medical student and historian of medicine Michael Healey, PhD serves as co-host as we interview Marsha Wittink, MD, MBE, academic chief of the Medicine in Psychiatry Division and medical director of the Medicine in Psychiatry Unit at the University of Rochester Medical Center. We discuss the collaborative and interdisciplinary work that occurs on medicine in psychiatry (med-psych) units, as well as how and why the health humanities and bioethics are intrinsic to that work. We also discuss the biopsychosocial model of medicine, paying attention to patient perspectives, and designing healthcare spaces for patient care. Articles that we read for this interview:   Marsha Wittink et al., “Undervalued Potential of Medical Psychiatry Units to Improve Care for People with Severe Mental Illness,” Psychiatr Serv 74, no. 9 (September 2023): 991-993. Frances K. Barg et al., “A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Loneliness and Depression in Older Adults,” J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 61, no. 6 (November 2006): S329-339. Marsha Wittink, Paul Duberstein, and Jeffrey M. Lyness, “Late-Life Depression in the Primary Care Setting: Toward a Patient-Centered Future,” in Late-Life Mood Disorders, edited by H. Lavretsky, M. Sajatovic, and C. F. Reynolds III (Oxford University Press, 2012), 500-515. Paul R. Duberstein and Marsha N Wittink, “Person-Centered Suicide Prevention,” in Psychology and Geriatrics: Integrated Care for an Aging Population, edited by Benjamin A. Bensadon (Academic Press, 2015), 153-181. Marsha Wittink et al., “Patient Priorities and the Doorknob Phenomenon in Primary Care: Can Technology Improve Disclosure of Patient Stressors?” Patient Educ Couns 101, no. 2 (February 2018): 214-220. Marsha Wittink et al., “Psychosomatic Medicine in the USA – A Systemic Biopsychosocial Approach in Practice,” in Psychosomatic Medicine, An International Guide, edited by Kurt Fritzsche and Michael Wirsching, 3rd edition (Springer, 2020).

Welcome to Season 2 of "In the Same Vein"! In this episode, Jan Gao - a recent graduate from the MS in Health Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester - serves as co-host. We talk to the historian Agnes Arnold-Forster about her recent book Cold, Hard Steel: The Myth of the Modern Surgeon (University of Manchester Press, 2023). In addition to many other topics, we discuss persistent myths about and stereotypes of the modern surgeon, how historical work can influence health practice and policy, and how those who don't "fit" the stereotype can benefit from learning about surgical myths in culture and practice.

The second season of "In the Same Vein" launches soon, with six episodes being published from October to December 2025.

In this episode, philosopher Jonathan Herington and PhD student Adam DeDobbelaere interview physician, data scientist, and ethicist Erika Ramsdale. They start with a discussion of the 2024 article “Large Language Models in Medicine: The Potentials and Pitfalls,” before discussing a range of topics: ethical quandaries now and in the future of AI, automation bias, the use of AI by both patients and clinicians, “digital twins,” bias in AI, and the state of data quality and privacy in medicine.

In this episode, we talk to Jonathan Herington, PhD about the recent article “Investigating Ethical Tradeoffs in Crisis Standards of Care through Simulation of Ventilator Allocation Protocols.” We discuss ventilator allocation, the Covid-19 pandemic, racial disparities in resource allocation, and the difference between saving lives and saving life years. We also dive into big questions about this type of work: How do we translate bioethics to medical audiences and to other audiences? What are some of the benefits and some of the drawbacks of using data to try to answer thorny bioethical questions? Thank you for listening!

In this episode, we speak with Julie Starr about her book Modified Bodies, Material Selves: Beauty Ideals in Post-Reform Shanghai (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2023). Our student co-host for this episode, second-year medical student Piper Schneider, is interested in pursuing plastic surgery and wanted to know more about how and why women think about beauty and body modification – and the techniques used to study those ways of thinking. We discuss the concept of tizhi, anthropological methods and the “data problem” in that field, and how cultural beauty ideals influence health, wellness, and medicine. 

In this episode of “In the Same Vein,” we chat to historian of medieval medicine Nichola Harris about her subfield: lapidary medicine, or, the use of stones and minerals for medicinal purposes. Harris talks us through how objects like coral, pearls, diamonds, amber, loadstones, and eaglestones were utilized in the medieval period (and ancient and early modern periods) as cures and for general health and wellness. Our questions for Nichola Harris are inspired by two of her recent pieces of writing: “Loadstones are a Girl’s Best Friend: Lapidary Cures, Midwives, and Manuals of Popular Healing in Medieval and Early Modern England” from the book The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing: Sites, Objects, and Texts and “The Protection of Innocents: Red Coral as a Lapidary Cure for the ‘Children’s Disease’ and Conditions Related to Childbirth in Medieval and Early Modern England” from Death and Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern World. MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:Rudolph Bell, How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (1999)Hildred S. GeertzPatrick WallisErin Connolly

In this episode, second-year medical student Spencer Mehdizadeh chose to speak to the historian of medicine Michael Brown, PhD about his 2022 book Emotions and Surgery in Britain, 1793-1912. We discuss anesthesia, pain, emotions, surgery, history, and the experiences of both patients and surgeons in the nineteenth century and today.Other Scholarly Work MentionedJoanna Bourke, The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers (2014)Rob Boddice, Knowing Pain: A History of Sensation, Emotion, and Experience (2023) Martin Pernick, A Calculus of Suffering: Pain, Professionalism, and Anesthesia in Nineteenth-Century America (1985)Stephanie J. Snow, Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World (2008)James Kennaway, “Celts Under the Knife: Surgical Fortitude, Racial Theory and the British Army” (2020)Rob Boddice, Humane Professions: The Defence of Experimental Medicine, 1876-1914 (2021)M. Anne Crowther and Marguerite W. Dupree, Medical Lives in the Age of Surgical Revolution (2007)

Welcome to the first episode of our new podcast “In the Same Vein”! In this premiere, our student co-host is the second-year medical student Isabella Cantor, whose personal experiences as a reader and as a healthcare provider led her to want to chat with the remarkable Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD. In this episode, we primarily talk about Dr. Ofri’s 2020 book When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error. But in addition to discussing the complexities of medical error and how to process it, we also chat about emotions in medicine, the role of art and music in taking care of yourself as a doctor, and medical education. Enjoy listening and please do subscribe so that you don’t miss any of the other episodes in Season 1!UPCOMING EVENTS WITH DR. OFRI’S BELLEVUE LITERARY REVIEWOctober 17, 2024 (online) - BLR Fall Reading: Body Politic November 16, 2024 (in person, NYC) – Body Politic: An Evening of Live Storytelling

Welcome to In the Same Vein! Full episodes coming soon!