Department of History and Philosophy of Medicine
Spring 2026 Lecture Schedule

The William G. Bartholome Lecture in Bioethics
“Love as the First Principle of Medical Ethics: Historical and Narrative Perspectives”
Tarris Rosell, PhD, DMin
Clinical Professor Emeritus
University of Kansas School of Medicine
Tuesday, April 7 | 12:00 PM | HEB 2110
Zoom link: https://kumc-ois.zoom.us/j/98429440580?pwd=AOYVs0BxqsaS7mBnjhFqqfFDSAUJTH.1
Lunch provided for the first 25 attendees.

The Inaugural Bob Buechel Lecture in the History of Anesthesia
"Our Heritage  -  Our Future"
Phil Larson, MD
Professor Emeritus of Anesthesiology
University of California Los Angeles
Tuesday, April 28 | 3:00 PM | Clendening Amphitheater, 2004 Robinson
Zoom link: https://kumc-ois.zoom.us/j/95378672796?pwd=xoqw7bUvbAW4abFxfvNHOgk9z10V9p.1
Reception immediately following lecture: Clendening Foyer 1000 Robinson

The Stanley R. Friesen Lecture in the History of Surgery
“Mexico and the History of Obstetric Surgery, 1745-1940”
Elizabeth O’Brien, PhD
Associate Professor of the History of Medicine and Latin American History
University of California Los Angeles
Thursday, April 30 | 12:00 PM | Cates East Auditorium, G010 Cates East

In this talk, historian Elizabeth O'Brien (UCLA) examines the history of surgical operations attendant to pregnant women and illnesses of the reproductive organs in Mexico, from the earliest cesarean operations in the 1700s, to oophorectomies in the 1860s-1870s, and finally, to eugenic sterilization in the twentieth century. Centering Mexico, the talk underscores how surgeries acquire racial and religious significance, and why racial prejudice and religious paternalism remain enmeshed in reproductive healthcare today. A central argument is that while most nineteenth century surgeries aimed to uncover difficult-to-see organs, obstetric surgery unveiled different varieties of truths, especially those having to do with the creation of fetal life and the adjudication of maternal worth. After all, before the ultrasound technology of the mid-twentieth century, surgery remained the only means of gazing within a pregnant woman’s womb, the only path to observing a fetus still attached to its mother. This means that reproductive surgery was, and still is, philosophically, medically, and socially distinct from other kinds of surgery, partially because it invokes so many unknowns about the mother–infant dyad, and because surgery makes metaphysics manifest. For the history of surgery, this also means that the origins of religious, political, and cultural claims on mothers and their unborn are surgical as well as metaphysical because authorities invoked surgery while making assertions about life, death, and the soul. Surgery was not incidental, O'Brien claims: it was instead constitutive to negotiating highly fraught and contested understandings of reproductive bodies and what they produce.

Bio: Elizabeth O'Brien is an Associate Professor of History at UCLA. She is the author of Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770-1940, which received the 2025 William H. Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine, the 2024 prize for the Best First Book in the History of Religions from the American Academy of Religion, and the 2023 Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize. She has published in Endeavour and The Lancet and has been funded by the NSF, ACLS/Mellon, the NEH, and Fulbright. 

Zoom link: https://kumc-ois.zoom.us/j/95992097260?pwd=RyEA8aXbxV1WyxI2bbCrienn41pZQt.1
Lunch provided for the first 25 attendees.


The Don Carlos Peete Lecture in the History of Cardiology
“From Abbott to Zebrafish: The Evolution of Understanding and Treating Congenital Heart Disease"
Stephen Kaine, MD
Professor of Pediatrics
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine
Tuesday, May 26 | 12:00 PM | Clendening Foyer, 1000 Robinson
Zoom link: https://kumc-ois.zoom.us/j/97127571056?pwd=0CVjRkMsGsYqL5tbYAGeaXUcrxa2k0.1
Lunch provided for the first 25 attendees.

Ongoing Exhibit
Anecdotes in Anesthesia: 120 years of Anesthesia in Kansas City
Clendening Foyer
1001 Robinson Building

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Kansas Medical Center. However, the history of anesthesia at KUMC goes back to the founding of Bell Memorial Hospital in 1906. The history of anesthesia in Kansas City goes back even further, shaped by a colorful cast of characters. Join us as we explore the evolution of anesthesia and the stories of its practitioners in the city.

For more information about the museum, please contact:
Jamie Rees
Manager of Historical Collections
(913) 588-7087
jrees@kumc.edu