15th annual Richard B. Davis, MD, PhD, History of Medicine Lecture

Jay Baruch, MD, will present the 15^th annual Richard B. Davis, MD, PhD, History of Medicine Lecture, hosted by the McGoogan Health Sciences Library.

Dr. Baruch’s lecture, “Humanities as Critical Medicine: The Necessary Practice of Uncertainty, Adaptability and Discovery,” will encompass his more than 30 years as an emergency room physician and the emotions, difficult choices and moral challenges he has experienced. Dr. Baruch is a writer, ER physician, educator and professor of emergency medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University, where he serves as the director of the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Scholarly Concentration.

The Davis Lecture will take place on Tuesday, April 16, from noon-1 p.m. The lecture will be a hybrid event located at the UNMC Sorrell Center, room 2014, and via Zoom (registration required). Zoom captioning will be available, along with an American Sign Language interpreter online.

As a practicing ER physician for more than 30 years, Dr. Baruch has learned that caring for patients can feel like swimming in choppy waters teeming with uncertainty, crests of emotions, difficult choices and moral challenges. He discovered how bridging disciplines with skills from his other life as a writer and his humanities and arts-based work have been critical clinical tools in his practice and informed his “accidental” academic career.

The Richard B. Davis, MD, PhD, History of Medicine Lectureship brings national experts to the UNMC campus to discuss the history of medicine in support of special collections at the McGoogan Library, including rare books and works on the history of medicine. The lectureship is supported through an endowed fund given by the late Richard B. Davis (1926-2010), MD, PhD, who was a UNMC faculty member from 1969 to 1994 and professor emeritus of internal medicine at UNMC. Dr. Davis and his wife, Jean, provided support for the lectureship out of his longstanding interest in the history of medicine.