Skip to Main Content

Art of Medicine Rounds

September 2025

Physicians for the People - Dr. Jack Ellis

September 4, 2025

Cove of Physicians for the People by Dr. Jack Ellis          Very small hospital room with eight beds and small privacy curtains

Pictured right: Black Obstetrical Ward, Birmingham’s University Hospital - 1960’s

Headshot of Dr. Jack Ellis

Physicians for the People

Black Doctors and the Struggle for Health-Care Equality in Alabama 1870-1970

Dr. Jack D. Ellis

Jack D. Ellis is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Before coming to Alabama, he served as chair of the Department of History at the University of Delaware, where he developed an interest in the social history of medicine. His latest work, Physicians for the People: Black Doctors and the Struggle for Health-Care Equality in Alabama, 1870-1970, draws on archival sources, an extensive database, and fifty-five oral histories with Black doctors, dentists, and family members who recounted their lives under segregation.

August 2025

Changing Lives, Bit by Bit - Dr. Margo Malone

August 7, 2025

A collage of photos including the logo for Therapeutic Riding of Tuscaloosa and three photographs of people interacting with horses

“Changing lives, bit by bit”

Therapeutic Riding of Tuscaloosa

Margo Malone, PhD

The mission of Therapeutic Riding of Tuscaloosa is to help each individual become the best they can be through interaction with specially trained horses and instructors. 

photo of Dr. Malone with a patient of therapeutic riding of Tuscaloosa standing next to a horse

Dr. Malone received her PhD in clinical psychology with a specialty in geriatric psychology from Washington University in St. Louis. She completed her internship at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) and worked at the inpatient psychiatric center at DCH (Druid City Hospital) in Tuscaloosa as well as at the Mary Stark Harper Geriatric Psychiatry Center. Today she is in private practice working with children and adults with physical, emotional and cognitive challenges. As an avid horse enthusiast, in 2014 Dr. Malone began combining psychotherapy with the assistance of equine partners and cofounded Therapeutic Riding of Tuscaloosa (http://www.trotusa.org). 

July 2025

ALS: A Journey Towards a Cure - Dr. Robert H. Brown, Jr.

July 17, 2025

Portrait photo of Dr. Robert H. Brown, Jr.

ALS    A Journey Towards a Cure

Robert H. Brown, Jr., DPhil, MD

Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD, the Donna M. and Robert J. Manning Chair in Neurosciences and director of the Program in Neurotherapeutics at UMass Chan Medical School, is an internationally known researcher and physician leading the quest to cure neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Renowned for his groundbreaking basic and clinical research on the inherited and genetic basis of neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases, Dr. Brown has a record of significant discoveries in identifying gene defects that elucidate how ALS causes neurons to die. In 1993, a team of researchers co-led by Dr. Brown discovered the first gene linked to the inherited form of ALS, called SOD1.

June 2025

A Road Out - Karin Shapiro, PhD

June 5, 2025

Black and white photograph of a crowd gathering around mobile med trucks in a south african village

A Road Out

A new film by Karin Shapiro, PhD

A Road Out tells the remarkable story of South African medical pioneers who transformed community health in the American South and helped us understand how race, poverty, and socioeconomic status affect people’s health.

Portrait of Dr. Karin Shapiro

Raised in South Africa, Dr. Karin Shapiro graduated from the University of Witwatersrand and received her doctorate in History from Yale University. She is an Associate Professor of the Practice at Duke University and serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of African and African American Studies. She is also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and numerous teaching awards. A Road Out is her fourth documentary film.

May 2025

A Night with Eddie - Eddie Coats

May 8, 2025

Portrait photo of Eddie Coats

A Night with Eddie

Eddie Coats

Eddie Coats is a senior at The University of Alabama majoring in English Language Arts Secondary Education and Theatre Arts. The Demopolis native discovered his passion for acting in the fourth grade when he played Pinocchio in a production by The Canebrake Players.  In addition to performing in numerous plays at UA, he has appeared in several productions of The Actor’s Charitable Theater (ACT) in Tuscaloosa, including “Chicago,” “Newsies,” and “Seussical.”  One of his recent performances was in January as the half-time singer at a Crimson Tide men’s basketball game in a sold-out Coleman Coliseum.

April 2025

The Beauty of a Diversified Life - Rev. Dr. Daniel Paul Morrison

April 3, 2025

A painting depicting a mountain range under a vibrant green sky

The beauty of a diversified life:

When biochemists, clergy, and composers become rascals, rogues, and rapscallions

Reverend Dr. Daniel Paul Morrison

Portrait of Daniel Paul Morrison

For the past 20 years, Daniel Paul Morrison has been the Senior Pastor at Huntingdon Valley Presbyterian Church in suburban Philadelphia. Prior to ordination, he taught philosophy at two Catholic universities in Pittsburgh. As an independent scholar, he has published and presented on such diverse topics as hospital chaplaincy in interfaith settings; the abolitionist Theodore Sedgwick Wright, the first African American graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary; ethical questions about transplantation and immunization; and the Bethlehem Steel Soccer Club, a renowned team in the early-20th century.  He and his wife were born in Switzerland and live with their teenage daughter 13.8 miles due north of the Liberty Bell.

March 2025

Helping physicians become better healers: A prescription of poetry and art - Stacy R. Nigliazzo, MSN, RN, CEN

March 6, 2025

Short-haired woman holding up an origami crane in the palm of her hand.

Helping physicians become better healers: A prescription of poetry and art

Stacy R. Nigliazzo, MSN, RN, CEN

Stacy R. Nigliazzo is a nurse and the author of three books of poems published by Press 53: Scissored Moon, Sky the Oar, and My Borrowed Face. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and the Bellevue Literary Review. She is an Imprint Brown Foundation Fellow at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program and a founding member of the Humanities Expression & Arts Lab (HEAL) at Baylor College of Medicine.

February 2025

A serene lake nestled among majestic mountains and lush trees

The Physician Who Became Suddenly Disabled: A Different Kind of Life

Mark Langer, MD, CCFP

Portrait of Dr. Mark Langer

Mark Langer, MD. CCFP is a disabled physician now living in a Continuing Care facility in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Prior to developing a brain tumor, he practiced as a full-scope generalist serving a northern Canadian village of 900, provided Emergency Room and inpatient coverage for a rural/remote hospital, acted as a faculty clinical preceptor with the department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta, and was a representative with the Northern Health Authority. He now spends his time listening to audiobooks, following professional hockey, and being a full-time grandfather.

January 2025

Portraits and Stories of Addiction: The Into Light Project - Dr. Georgia Rhodes

January 9, 2025

hand drawn sketch of Will Irvin

Portraits and Stories of Addiction: The Into Light Project

Dr. Georgia Rhodes

Portrait of Dr. Georgia Rhodes

Into Light is a national art project that seeks to address the misconception that people with addiction are to blame for their illness and to offer healing and hope and create meaningful dialogue about substance use disorder.

Dr. Georgia Rhodes is an audiologist and the mother of two adult boys, one of whom was lost in 2012 to the ravages of substance use. Based on that experience she became involved with the national non- profit, Into Light Project, and now serves as an Alabama co-ambassador of the group.

January 2025

“The Ethics of Empathy in the 21st Century” - Tracy Moniz, PhD and Paul Haidet, MD, MPH

January 7, 2025

Drag the white cloud into the black cloud to view the recording.

An artwork featuring a man caring for a sick man

The Ethics of Empathy in the 21st Century

Tracy Moniz, PhD and Paul Haidet, MD, MPH

Portrait of Dr. Tracy Moniz

 

Dr. Moniz is president of the Canadian Association for Health and Humanities. An associate professor of Communication Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, she teaches health communication and conducts research on the use of reflective writing to advance humanistic healthcare.

 

 

Portrait of Dr. Paul Haidet

 

Paul Haidet, MD, MPH, a general internist, is professor of Medicine, Humanities, and Public Health Sciences at the Penn State College of Medicine where he also serves as the inaugural director of Medical Education Research. He has written extensively about humanistic healthcare, and he is currently exploring improvisational aspects of patient-physician communication.