Guest speaker: Harriet A. Washington, Medical Ethicist and Writer.

This public health lecture series is named in honor of the historic Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis. At a time in American society when people of color were restricted from most medical training programs, the Homer G. Phillips Hospital became the premier training ground for African American medical professionals — many of whom remained to deliver high quality health care in the St. Louis area and who later assumed prestigious positions throughout the nation. Although it closed its doors on August 17, 1979, we can learn much from the hospital’s history, presented by the very people who strived diligently to provide culturally sensitive care to the patients who so deeply trusted and loved them.

Harriet A. Washington is a medical ethicist and writer whose work focuses upon the intersection of biotechnology, ethics and the history of medicine. A 2002-2005 Research Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, she is the author of the award-winning 2007 best seller “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation with African Americans from the Colonial Era to the Present”. Ms. Washington has presented her work in public health, medical ethics, and the history of medicine at both domestic and European universities and has been a contributor, news editor, science editor and medical columnist for a number of esteemed national publications.