Medical Humanities Council Faculty Partners
The Medical Humanities Council is grateful to have many faculty members that work or are engaged with the Medical Humanities provide support and mentorship to interested medical students. Faculty members, their position, contact information and medical humanities areas of interests are listed below.
Areas of Interest include: Narrative Medicine, Writing, Music, Visual Art, Ethics, Philosophy, History, Sociology, Anthropology.
Amanda Finegold Swain
Assistant Professor Department of Family Medicine & Community Health
amanda.swain@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Dr. Swain is the MHC Faculty Advisor. She's involved with creating and supervising medical humanities electives (non-credit) at PSOM.
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing
Jeffrey Millstein
Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine
jeffrey.millstein@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Dr. Millstein is a general internist, educator and writer, who enjoys writing/publishing narrative fiction and non-fiction and writes regularly for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing
David S. Barnes
Associate Professor of History & Sociology of Science
dbarnes@sas.upenn.edu
Areas of Interest: Writing, History
Jonathan D. Moreno
David & Lyn Silfen University Professor, Professor of Medical Ethics & Health Policy and of History & Sociology of Science
morenojd@upenn.edu
Areas of Interest: Philosophy, Bioethics, History, Sociology
Josh Kayser
Professor of Clinical Medicine & Medical Ethics
joshua.kayser@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Dr. Kayser educates at the UME and GME level at the intersection of medical ethics, communication, critical care medicine and hospice and palliative medicine. He is particularly interested in how medical humanities can inform and broaden understanding of patient narrative and the experience of illness and suffering as a mechanism to improve empathy, humanism and compassionate care.
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing, Music, Philosophy, Ethics, History, Sociology, Anthropology
Aaron Levy
Senior Lecturer, English and History of Art, School of Arts and Sciences, and Special Advisor, Health and Humanities Initiatives, Penn Medicine
adlevy@upenn.edu
Dr. Levy is a Senior Lecturer in the Departments of English and the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania and the Director of Health Humanities Initiatives at Penn Medicine, where he directs the Penn Medicine Listening Lab and co-directs Rx/Museum. These projects and initiatives reflect his dedication to the medical humanities and the development of new approaches to listening and care.
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Visual Art, Philosophy, Ethics, History, Sociology, Anthropology
Adam Mohr
Senior Lecturer in Critical Writing and History and Sociology of Science
adammohr@sas.upenn.edu
Dr. Mohr is a medical anthropologist and historian of West African and the African Diaspora studying the intersection of religion and healing.
Areas of Interest: Writing, History, Sociology, Anthropology
Brian Dunham
Division of Pediatric Otolaryngology
dunhamb@chop.edu
Dr. Dunham works on medical illustrations, surgical simulators (3D-printed), and designing medical devices.
Areas of Interest: Visual Art
Vijay Srinivasan
Associate Professor, Anesthesiology and Critical Care
srinivasan@chop.edu
Dr. Srinivasan engages with art in medicine as a wellness and team building tool for professionals in the critical care setting. He also has keen interests in the intersection of ethics and law in healthcare.
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing, Music, Visual Art, Ethics, Philosophy, History, Sociology, Anthropology
Andrew Orr
Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, Section of Hospital Medicine
andrew.orr@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Dr. Orr runs a museum-based visual art workshop for internal medicine residents and is interested in use of the positive humanities to help medical professionals find joy, meaning, and purpose in work and life.
Areas of Interest: Visual Art
Herman Beavers
Professor of English and Africana Studies
hbeavers@upenn.edu
Dr. Beavers's interest in the medical humanities springs from his interest in how jazz was received in the 1920s, when it was compared to a viral infection, a plague, and rot. The fear the music inspired in whites who listened to the music and heard noise, a chaos that would sweep young people up and lead the nation's ruin. In light of the fact that the world was barely 40 years down the road from Pasteur's germ theory, Dr. Beavers is interested in how cultural commentators resorted to the language of infectious disease to describe the dangers jazz threatened to visit upon the nation. In making the distinction between Western cultural production and the "Black Death" of jazz, whites were claiming the human and relegating Black and Brown people (and whites who loved the music) to a place outside of the human.
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing, Music, Ethics, Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology
Jason Karlawish
Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics & Health Policy and Neurology
jason.karlawish@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Jules Lipoff
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Dermatology, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
jules.lipoff@temple.edu
Dr. Lipoff is a Philly dermatologist formerly at Penn who aims to incorporate humanities into his work and his work into the humanities. He has published and worked on op-eds, columns, creative writing, social media, films, podcasts, and is happy to support students interested in these areas.
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing, Ethics/Philosophy, History, Podcasting, Medical Consultation for TV/Film
Nitin Ahuja
Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine (Gastroenterology)
nitin.ahuja@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Dr. Ahuja writes essays about medicine aimed at literary and lay press publications.
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing, History
Jason Han
Cardiothoracic Surgery Resident, Cardiac Surgery
jshan0113@gmail.com
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing, Ethics, Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology
Anna Wexler
Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy
awex@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing, Ethics, Philosophy, History, Sociology, Anthropology
Wynne Morrison
Professor, Anesthesiology & Critical Care, CHOP
morrisonw@chop.edu
Dr. Morrison is a physician-poet practicing pediatric critical care and palliative care at CHOP.
Areas of Interest: Narrative Medicine, Writing, Ethics, Philosophy
Jason Schnittker
Professor of Sociology
jschnitt@ssc.upenn.edu
Dr. Schnittker is interested in the social, cultural, and biological determinants of health, with a particular interest in mental health.
Areas of Interest: History, Sociology, Anthropology