The New England Journal of Medicine is celebrating its 200th anniversary with the publication of special articles this year. Global Health and Social Medicine faculty members have contributed six of the 20 special articles published to date. Authors include: Allan Brandt, Paul Farmer, Jeremy Greene, David Jones, Salmaan Keshavjee, Scott Podolsky, and Bob Truog. Following are links to the special anniversary page article and to the individual articles:
New England Journal of Medicine Special Anniversary Articles
A Reader’s Guide to 200 Years of the New England Journal of Medicine
by Allan M. Brandt
Publication Date: January 5th 2012
Allan Brandt provides a retrospective of the NEJM at 200.
“With this issue, the New England Journal of Medicine marks its 200th anniversary. In January 1812, as the first issue came off the handset letterpress, few of its founders could have predicted such continuity and success. John Collins Warren, the renowned Boston surgeon, his colleague James Jackson, a founder of Massachusetts General Hospital, and the small group of distinguished colleagues who joined them in starting theNew England Journal of Medicine and Surgery, and the Collateral Branches of Scienceexpressed modest and largely local aspirations for the enterprise. . . .”
Patients and Doctors: The Evolution of a Relationship
by Robert D. Troug
Publication Date: February 16th 2012
Dr. Robert Truog discusses the changing dynamics of different aspects of the doctor-patient relationship over 200 years:
“The relationship between patients and doctors is at the core of medical ethics, serving as an anchor for many of the most important debates in the field. Over the past several decades, this relationship has evolved along three interrelated axes — as it is defined in clinical care, research, and society.”
Therapeutic Evolution and the Challenge of Rational Medicine
by Jeremy A. Greene, David S. Jones, and Scott H. Podolsky
Publication Date: September 20th 2012
As physicians have sought more rational bases for medical practice over the past 200 years, they have swung between enthusiasm and skepticism. A historical approach to therapeutics can redirect our attention toward the practical context in which medicine has evolved.
The Evolving Roles of the Medical Journal
by Scott H. Podolsky, Jeremy A. Greene, and David S. Jones
Publication Date: April 19th 2012
Journals do not simply disseminate new knowledge about medical theory and practice. They also define the scope of medical concerns and articulate norms for physicians’ professional and social roles. The history of NEJM provides a window on the changing functions of journals and the medical profession.
The Burden of Disease and the Changing Task of Medicine
by David S. Jones, Scott H. Podolsky, and Jeremy A. Greene
Publication Date: June 21st 2012
How have our views on health and medicine changed in the past 200 years? Despite different diseases, better drugs and therapies, the healthcare system has not been adapted. Drs. Jones, Podolsky and Greene discuss how far medicine has come, as well as the shortcomings of modern care.
Tuberculosis, Drug Resistance and the History of Modern Medicine
by Salmann Keshavjee and Paul E. Farmer
Publication Date: September 6th 2012
On the evening of March 24, 1882, when Robert Koch completed his presentation on the infectious cause of tuberculosis, silence enveloped the crowded room at the Berlin Physiological Society. Koch summarized the importance of his findings in a manuscript published shortly after his announcement: “In the future the fight against this terrible plague of mankind will deal no longer with an undetermined something, but with a tangible parasite, whose living conditions are for the most part known and can be investigated further.”
Drs. Keshavjee and Farmer discuss the emergence of therapy for TB and the subsequent emergence and dissemination of drug-resistant strains.