January 11, 2024
The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health
Donald R. Shopland
On January 11, 1964, US Surgeon General Luther L. Terry, MD, an Alabamian, released a document that would have a profound impact on the nation: Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service. On January 11, 2024, The University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco Society will commemorate the 60th anniversary of this landmark event in public health.
Donald Shopland has been actively involved in tobacco control for more than 50 years, having worked on the original Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health. He is the only individual whose name is listed as a contributor to each of the 34 reports of the Surgeon General on the health consequences of smoking published between 1967 and 2014. Over his long career in the US Public Health Service, he served as the director of the Office on Smoking and Health and coordinator of the National Cancer Institute's Smoking and Tobacco Control Program.
January 11, 2024
Blowing Smoke: The Lost Legacy of the Surgeon General's Report
Alan Blum, MD
Since 1999, Dr. Blum, Professor and Gerald Leon Wallace M.D. Endowed Chair in Family Medicine, has served as founding director of The University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, which holds the world's largest collection of original materials on the tobacco industry, cigarette marketing, and the anti-smoking movement. Dr. Blum has given over 1,800 invited presentations in all 50 states and authored more than 100 journal articles. As editor of the New York State Journal of Medicine and the Medical Journal of Australia, he published the first theme issues on tobacco at any medical journal. He is a recipient of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Medallion, presented by Dr. C. Everett Koop, the first National Public Health Award from the American Academy of Family Physician, and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Amherst College. Dr. Koop described Alan Blum, MD as the individual "who has done more against smoking than anyone.
February 1, 2024
Amy Lang, PhD
Amy Lang, PhD, is a professor in the University of Alabama Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics. She is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, where she earned a doctorate in aeronautics. In her research, which is supported by the National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the United States Army, and Boeing, Dr. Lang studies how sharks swim and butterflies fly.
In her presentation, she will share what she has discovered…and how she did it.
March 7, 2024
An Evening with Mike Royer
The Alabama broadcaster and teacher who has made health news matter
Mike Royer has spent the past 48 years in broadcast television, most recently at WVUA, where he taught students in the College of Communications at the University of Alabama. He also hosted “Health Matters,” in which he interviewed Tuscaloosa physicians and other health professionals. Mr. Royer was the anchor of an Emmy-award winning newscast in Birmingham and received the Edward R. Murrow award for broadcast excellence. He was named Alabama’s Best Television Meteorologist by the Associated Press, and for 25 years produced a weekly tv feature, “The Spirit of Alabama,” which highlighted individuals, places, events, and traditions across the state.
Compassion and the Art of Medicine - Alan Blum, MD
March 8, 2024
Rethinking the Premedical Requirements, the MCAT, and the Medical School Curriculum - Richard Aronson, MD, MPH
May 9, 2024
Rethinking the Premedical Requirements, the MCAT, and the Medical School Curriculum
Richard Aronson, MD, MPH
Dr. Aronson is a pediatrician and public health leader who has dedicated his 45-year career to addressing health disparities. As the Health Professions Advisor and Assistant Dean of Students at Amherst College since 2011, he has championed instilling in his premed students an appreciation of the essential importance of the humanities and learning about the human condition as fundamental to preparing for medical school and the practice of medicine.
Drs. John Wheat and Ray Stewart will also join this discussion.
Healing Pain and Trauma Through Writing Poetry - Judith Skillman
June 6, 2024
Healing Pain and Trauma Through Writing Poetry
Judith Skillman
Judith Skillman is the author of twenty full-length collections of poetry and three short books, including Oscar the Misanthropist, which received a major national award in 2021. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, and her 26 poems in the Journal of the American Medical Association may be the most by any poet. She has been honored by the Academy of American Poets, the Artist Trust, and the Washington State Arts Commission. Visit www.judithskillman.com.
Patient-Centered Pearls of Hospital Practice - Robert Sheppard, MD
July 11, 2024
Patient-Centered Pearls of Hospital Practice
Robert Sheppard, MD
A native of Alabama and the son of tenant farmers, Dr. Sheppard graduated from the University of Alabama and the UAB School of Medicine. After completing an internal medicine residency at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, he served a fourth year as Chief Medical Resident. From 1980 to 2002 he practiced internal medicine and cardiology in Carrollton, Alabama, before joining the faculty at the College of Community Health Sciences at the University of Alabama to start the University Hospitalist Program, which he directed until 2019. In 2006, he founded the nation’s first hospitalist medicine fellowship training program specifically designed for family physicians. Dr. Sheppard has won more than twenty excellence in teaching awards, and his writings on electrocardiogram interpretation and hospital medicine are used in training programs across the nation.
Looking at Tattoos: from Community to Immunity - Christopher D. Lynn, PhD
August 1, 2024
Looking at Tattoos: from Community to Immunity
Christopher D. Lynn, PhD
Christopher Lynn is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama (UA) whose focus is on biocultural medical anthropology, especially cultural impacts on health. He has studied speaking in tongues and stress response; the possible evolution of fireside relaxation response; and tattooing and health. Dr. Lynn founded the UA Evolutionary Studies Program and the Public Engagement Learning Community. He is the author of Transcendental Medication: The Evolution of Mind, Culture, and Healing and is the executive producer of the science podcasts “Sausage of Science” and “Inking of Immunity.”
The Brain and the Healing Power of Poetry
Arthur Ginsberg, MD
Neurologist and poet Arthur Ginsberg lives in Seattle, where he teaches an undergraduate honors course at the University of Washington on the healing power of poetry. After receiving his medical degree at McGill University in Montreal, he completed a residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic, followed by a residency in neurology at the University of Colorado and a fellowship in neurovirology at the University of California. While practicing neurology, Dr. Ginsberg also earned a Master of Fine Arts from Pacific University. He has written several books of poetry, including The Anatomist, Brainworks, and Holy the Body.
October 10, 2024
Echoes of Injustice: The Persistent Impact of Violence on the Civil Rights Movement
John Giggie, PhD
John Giggie is Director of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South and Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama. He is the author or editor of six books, most recently Bloody Tuesday: The Untold Story of the Battle for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa (Oxford, 2024). Dr. Giggie is founder of Alabama Memory, a national effort to recapture and memorialize the over 800 lives lost to lynching in Alabama, and Queer History South, an oral history program documenting the lives of LGBTQ+ citizens in West Alabama. He also is creator of “History of Us,” the first Black history class taught daily in a public school in Alabama.
Saving Freud - Andrew Nagorski
November 7, 2024
Saving Freud
Andrew Nagorski
Andrew Nagorski served more than three decades as a foreign correspondent and editor for Newsweek. In 1982, he drew international attention when the Soviet government objected to his coverage of the regime and expelled him from the country. He is the author of eight books, including Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power and The Nazi Hunters. His latest book, Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom, has been well reviewed. The Guardian wrote, “Thrilling. . . as edge-of-your-seat gripping as any heist movie.” Nagorski is also chairman of the board of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, a member of the board of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Overseas Press Club.
My Life as a Radiologist. . . and a Poet - Amit Majmudar, MD
December 3, 2024
My Life as a Radiologist. . . and a Poet
Amit Majmudar, MD
Dr. Amit Majmudar is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator. He works as a diagnostic nuclear radiologist in Westerville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and three children. Recent books include Twin A: A Memoir (Slant Books, 2023), The Great Game: Essays on Poetics (Acre Books, 2024), and the hybrid work Three Metamorphoses (Orison Books, 2025). More information at www.amitmajmudar.com.
Music to Our Ears: Connecting People with Nature through Bird Song - Kevin Shaw
December 5, 2024
Music to Our Ears:
Connecting People with Nature through Bird Song
Kevin Shaw
Kevin Shaw, a lifelong birder, is a PhD candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama (UA). His research in the laboratory of Dr. Paige Ferguson explores the complex relationships among bird behaviors, researcher skills, and conclusions about the resources that birds need to survive. Prior to moving to Alabama, he worked as a wildlife biologist in southern California and conducted research about how land use affects bird communities in the cloud forests of Mindo, Ecuador. While serving for two years as president of the University of Alabama Conservation Biology Society, he coordinated litter cleanups, outreach events, and a compost program for the UA community. He also co-leads public field trips with Alabama Audubon and volunteers on bird protection projects that include window collision monitoring, banding to study survival patterns, and efforts to stem the declining population of chimney swifts.