CANCELED: Family Weekend 2023:The Arnold D. Kates Lecture presents Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble

Vanessa Northington Gamble, MD, PhD is University Professor of Medical Humanities at the George Washington University. She is the first woman and first African American to hold this prestigious, endowed faculty position. She is also Professor of Health Policy and Medicine and Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University. In addition, she is Adjunct Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

Dr. Gamble has frequently been a pioneer during her professional career. She was the first African American woman appointed, and later tenured, to the faculty of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. In 1996, she became Founding Director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in Medicine – one of the first academic centers to address racial and ethnic inequities in health and health care.

Throughout her career Dr. Gamble has worked to promote equity and justice in American medicine and public health. A physician, scholar, and activist, she is an internationally recognized expert on the history of race and American medicine, health equity, and bioethics. She is the author of several widely acclaimed publications on the history of race and racism in American medicine. Public service has also been a hallmark of Dr. Gamble’s career. She chaired the committee that took the lead role in the successful campaign to obtain the 1997 apology from President Clinton for the infamous United States Public Health Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. Dr. Gamble has also served on several boards, including Hampshire College, the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research and the National Council on the Humanities.

Her many honors include membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha, Honor Medical Society; election as a Fellow of the Hastings Center; an honorary degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University; and the Distinguished Graduate Award from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. A proud native of West Philadelphia, Dr. Gamble is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

In this presentation Dr. Gamble will examine the life of Dr. Virginia M. Alexander (1899-1949) an African American physician-activist who crafted a career that combined medicine, research, and activism to become a leading pioneer of racial justice and health equity. This talk will examine her personal and professional biography to illuminate the role of racism in the evolution of American medicine and the frequently unrecognized history of African American women physicians. In addition, Dr. Gamble will provide personal insights on what it has meant to write a biography of her professional foremothers.

Sponsored by the Arnold D. Kates Lecture Fund.