Raymond Curry

Following on four decades in academic medicine and educational administration, I’m very much enjoying the opportunity to develop skills in historical scholarship with the wonderful faculty in the Department of the History of Medicine and with my colleagues in the online masters program.

I am a native of Lexington, Kentucky, and a graduate of the University of Kentucky and of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.  I then trained in internal medicine at Northwestern University/McGaw Medical Center and joined the faculty in their nascent academic general internal medicine division in 1985.  After serving as internal medicine clerkship director and a clinical firm chief I was then vice dean for education at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine from 1998 to 2014. Since 2015 I have served in a similar role, senior associate dean for educational affairs, at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, which is based in Chicago with regional campuses in Peoria and Rockford, Illinois.

My academic interests include the study and teaching of doctor-patient communication, access to medical education for those under-represented in the profession, including students with disabilities, and the history of medical education – the latter interest driving my involvement in the masters program.  I am currently serving as a member of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the accrediting body for MD-degree programs in the US, and the Advisory Council for the Chicago Area Albert Schweitzer Fellowships program.  I have also in the past been involved in leadership of the Academy of Communication in Healthcare, the Provident Foundation, and the Northern Illinois chapter of the American College of Physicians.

My evolving masters thesis is embedded in Progressive era Chicago, and explores the relationships between physicians connected with Jane Addams’ Hull House and local medical schools, with particular attention to contemporary concepts of social hygiene and eugenics.

My wife, Dr. Kristi Kirschner, and I are the parents of two adult sons; we live in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Joseph Aaron S. Joe

Joseph Aaron Joe earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the Ateneo de Manila University in 2018. He has also taken up coursework towards an MA in Anthropology (unfinished degree) at the University of the Philippines in 2021.

Since 2018, he was engaged in various research projects in public health, focusing on health systems strengthening and the sociocultural dimensions of health and illness. He is a Research Associate at the Planetary and Global Health Program of the St. Luke’s Medical Center-College of Medicine. Prior to this, he assisted in research projects at the University of the Philippines Manila-Neglected Tropical Diseases Study Group and the Alliance for Improving Health Outcomes, Inc.

Through the CAST-M program, he wishes to develop the necessary lens and tools to critically approach studies on sustainable health and well-being of populations historically marginalized on the basis of gender, sexuality, and colonialism.

Anisa Johnson

Anisa received her BS in Nutrition from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical University in 2020 where she began research interests at the intersection of maternal health and historical analyses of global human rights.  After graduating she continued this work by joining the team of researchers and practitioners of Healthy Hearts Plus II (HHP II) – a community-based nonprofit providing innovative education and nutritional interventions to women and girls who are under-resourced and historically underserved.  As part of a collaboration between HHP II and Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing, Anisa gained experience as a Research Assistant in an NIH-funded perinatal intervention study examining the impact of mindfulness/movement practices in reducing stress and depressive symptoms. Using these professional experiences Anisa will marry her love of advocacy work, science, and history through the CAST-M program.

Hal Scofield

I received a BA in Chemistry from Texas A&M University in 1980, and was the fourth generation of his family to attend Texas A&M.  I graduated with the MD degree in 1984 rom the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.  I was then an internal medicine intern and resident at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center from 1984 through 1987, serving as Medicine Chief Resident 1987-1988.  I was an endocrinology fellow at the same institution and a post-doctoral fellow in immunology and genetics at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation from 1988 to 1991, joining the faculty at OUHSC in the Department of Medicine and the Arthritis & Immunology Program at OMRF in 1991.

My research concentrates on the immunology, genetics and endocrinology of systemic lupus erythematosus and Sjögren’s syndrome.  I have published ~350 scientific articles, and had continuous funding by the National Institutes of Health since 1991. I was an NIH Fogarty International Fellow at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 1998. From May 2008 through June 2011 I was Associate Dean for Clinical & Translational Research in the College of Medicine at OUHSC. In 2017 I was appointed Associate Chief of Staff for Research at the Oklahoma City Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.  I began teaching the History of Medicine Enrichment course for second year medical students at OUHSC in 2010, which is one of several humanities electives in the fall semester.  Once I was teaching this course, I decided I wanted to formalize my longstanding interest in medical history; thus, I began taking courses in the on-line in the Hopkins program.

I am now a Masters student at the point of starting research for my thesis.  I am planning to write about Isabella Vandervall, a Black woman physician who practiced in Harlem beginning in 1915.  She was an early advocate for birth control.  I just submitted a grant to the New York City Public Library as a short term scholar in order to study her papers at the NYPL Schlomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.  I am trying to carve out a portion of my career for medical history and have published 2 history papers with another in preparation.  I have published two short stories as well as a paper in the Journal of Irreproducible Results. My wife Bea and I live in an historic neighborhood in Oklahoma City in a house built in 1928 (That is about as old as houses get in OKC). I enjoy golf, soccer refereeing, practicing my Spanish at free clinics as well playing the trumpet and the tuba.

Denise Straiges

Denise is a 2023 graduate of the JHU History of Medicine Program. Her thesis, Contingent Evolution: Homeopathy and 19^th Century Biomedicine explores how the uptake of bacteriological discoveries into the canon of 19^th century medical knowledge was an interdependent and non-linear process in both orthodox and heterodox spaces.

Since 2015, Denise has served as President and Clinical Director of The Academy of Homeopathy Education, the named educational provider for the American Institute of Homeopathy, and HOHM Foundation, a not-for-profit, research-based initiative. She teaches around the world in Homeopathy, integrative wellness, and spirituality in medicine.

Denise has conducted extensive, primary research on the intellectual origins of Homeopathy, the 19^th century medical modality as put forth by Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), with specific focus on Hahnemann’s The Chronic Diseases and the chemical origin of his medicine. In conjunction with HOHM Foundation, she has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on clinical outcomes and education in integrative medicine. She is completing a compendium of homeopathic case analysis with expected publication in 2024.

Academic interests include the alchemical/iatrochemical influences in 18^th and 19^th century medicine; she has the intention to pursue a PhD on this topic.

Bailey West

Bailey West is from Michigan and was accepted into the History of Medicine Online Master’s program in 2021. Bailey received her BA in History from Oakland University in 2021 and Associate’s Degree from Northern Michigan University in 2017.