Starting in the colonial period and crystalizing during the Republican Period, American doctors differentiated themselves from their European colleagues and from non-traditional healers by instituting a medical-racial script. We'll discuss what the script is, how it helped American healthcare and its white male doctors to establish legitimacy, and the toll it took on the African American community. The script will be woven throughout this course. Nothing more united white male doctors, helped grow the American medical infrastructure and academic foundation, and imprinted on American medicine its enduring stamp than the script. As we study the nidus of the AMA in the mid 1800's, the Progressive rise of orthodox medicine in the early 20th century, and the consolidation of modern orthodoxy, the script emerges as an often covert but powerful catalyst to the health care system we know today.

I will be presenting a series of lectures on the history of American Health Care through 1920. These lectures are interesting in how they lay a framework for the system we have today. The first lecture explores our colonial origins. How did the American healthcare system and its doctors change from their European mentors? What about the American landscape fermented something unique in the colonies regarding the practice and study of medicine?

Antibiotics are one of the most impactful medical discoveries in the past century. Along with sanitation and sterile technique, antibiotics have led to a dramatic increase in life expectancy. However, now we have moved down a different road. We are over-using antibiotics, killing our gut bacteria, causing resistance leading to superbugs that can't be stopped by any of our technology. The judicious use of antibiotics is lifesaving. The overuse of antibiotics is just the opposite. Hear the two docs talk about this important issue!