Physicians for the People - Dr. Jack Ellis
September 4, 2025
Pictured right: Black Obstetrical Ward, Birmingham’s University Hospital - 1960’s
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.
Changing Lives, Bit by Bit - Dr. Margo Malone
August 7, 2025
“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.
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).
ALS: A Journey Towards a Cure - Dr. Robert H. Brown, Jr.
July 17, 2025
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.
A Road Out - Karin Shapiro, PhD
June 5, 2025
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.
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.
A Night with Eddie - Eddie Coats
May 8, 2025
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.
The Beauty of a Diversified Life - Rev. Dr. Daniel Paul Morrison
April 3, 2025
The beauty of a diversified life:
When biochemists, clergy, and composers become rascals, rogues, and rapscallions
Reverend Dr. 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.
Helping physicians become better healers: A prescription of poetry and art - Stacy R. Nigliazzo, MSN, RN, CEN
March 6, 2025
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.
The Physician Who Became Suddenly Disabled: A Different Kind of Life - Mark Langer, MD, CCFP
February 6, 2025
The Physician Who Became Suddenly Disabled: A Different Kind of Life
Mark Langer, MD, CCFP
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.
Portraits and Stories of Addiction: The Into Light Project - Dr. Georgia Rhodes
January 9, 2025
Portraits and Stories of Addiction: The Into Light Project
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.
“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.
The Ethics of Empathy in the 21st Century
Tracy Moniz, PhD and Paul Haidet, MD, MPH
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.
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.