Category: History of Current Healthcare Issues

What Role Can Medical Museums Play in 2SLGBTQI+ Communities?

June 30, 2025

As Dr. Ashley Waddington noted in her interview with us here, gender diversity and its expression cannot be limited to the medical practices we’ve come to group under gender affirming health care today. Historically, transgender, Two-Spirit, intersex and gender non-conforming or genderqueer people have existed independently of medical services like surgery or hormonal therapies. … More What Role Can Medical Museums Play in 2SLGBTQI+ Communities?

Part 2: Gender affirming care in Kingston: in conversation with Dr. Ashley Waddington

June 27, 2025

To explore the topic of gender affirming care, we spoke to Dr. Ashley Waddington, an Associate Professor in the division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Queen’s University. This is the second part of an interview with Dr. Waddington. … More Part 2: Gender affirming care in Kingston: in conversation with Dr. Ashley Waddington

Part 1: Gender affirming care in Kingston: in conversation with Dr. Ashley Waddington

June 27, 2025

To continue exploring the topic of gender affirming care, Associate Professor in the division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Queen’s University.l … More Part 1: Gender affirming care in Kingston: in conversation with Dr. Ashley Waddington

Alcohol, Benzodiazepines, and Chlorpromazine: The ABCs of the History of Psychopharmacology

October 10, 2024

The story of mental health treatment in North America is a fascinating one. In many ways, the field of psychiatry has had a harder time advancing at the same pace as other medical fields due to the absence of obvious, external markers of disease. In fact, even today, we struggle to define and identify psychiatric illnesses and develop reliable, safe, and effective methods to treat them. … More Alcohol, Benzodiazepines, and Chlorpromazine: The ABCs of the History of Psychopharmacology

The Public Life of Hormones: HRT in Ontarian Communities

September 18, 2024

My project for this summer’s Margaret Angus Research Fellowship will try to unearth some of this history, looking at hormones’ incorporation into physicians’ education, hospitals, and peoples’ daily lives. By investigating the education of physicians at Queen’s medical school, records of their practice and training, news sources like the ones considered here, and 2SLGBTQI+ community records and ephemera, I will be looking into the local history of HRT in Kingston and Ontario more generally. … More The Public Life of Hormones: HRT in Ontarian Communities

Traversing the Transplant Timeline: The Story of the First Successful Kidney Transplant 

April 23, 2024

In 1954 something incredible happened. What had once seemed impossible became a reality, setting the groundwork for one of the biggest revolutions in 20th-century medicine. This is the story of the first successful organ transplant.  … More Traversing the Transplant Timeline: The Story of the First Successful Kidney Transplant 

Black History Month: Dr. Hadal El-Hadi & Dr. Teresa Semalulu

January 30, 2024

Dr. Hadal El-Hadi and Dr. Teresa Semalulu are the co-founders of the Black Physicians of Canada organization established in 2020 with a mission to build a community of Black physicians and physicians-in-training, and educate the Canadian health care system about the obstacles that Black physicians frequently encounter. … More Black History Month: Dr. Hadal El-Hadi & Dr. Teresa Semalulu