About the Institute

Our Mission

The Institute connects and supports humanists, clinician-scholars, and the broader public to create and transform research and collaboration in the history of medicine and health humanities.

Our Vision

The Institute advances scholarly research and public education dedicated to studying the connections between medicine and the cultures in which it is embedded. Its goal is to sustain and train the next generation of humanists and social scientists, clinician-scholars, and public intellectuals who will lead academic and broader discussions about the history of medicine and its allied sciences. Acknowledging the many diverse ways in which healthcare is delivered, and by whom, the Institute embraces a broad approach, maintaining continuity and coherence by focusing on the shared concerns of physicians, nurses, alternative practitioners, patients, and scholars that inform the health humanities. The Institute’s Director, with the assistance of a Board of Advisors, determines thematic directions of research with the primary goals of combining humanist methods and technical competence, as well as accessible and timely research. The Institute supports and welcomes projects that draw on expert knowledge in medicine and a varied range of disciplinary approaches in anthropology, art history, digital humanities, economics, history of science and technology, literature, philosophy, and sociology. The Institute’s public and social media presence is intended to match its vision of engaging the public, professionals, and scholars worldwide to share knowledge and build intellectual communities. Supporting exhibitions, public lectures, conferences, publications, and other programs reflect the Institute’s goal of bridging disciplines and reaching a wide audience.

The initial support of the Institute has its origins in Dr. J. Mario Molina’s passion for the history of medicine and the lessons to be learned from broad-minded historical scholarship that takes on the responsibility of supporting ongoing reflection of the goals and nature of clinical practice and health policy.  Philanthropic support from individuals, industry, as well as public and private institutions will be sought to sustain the Institute beyond its initial endowment.

Board Members

President

Dr. J. Mario Molina

Dr. J. Mario Molina is a physician and healthcare leader with training and board certification in internal medicine, endocrinology and metabolism. He earned his MD from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, completed an internal medicine residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, pursued fellowship training in endocrinology and metabolism at UC San Diego and the San Diego VA Medical Center, and has served as an assistant professor of medicine at USC; he later completed a management certificate at UCLA Anderson. Dr. Molina has also held senior executive roles at Molina Healthcare, a large organization focused on arranging care for individuals and families served through government-funded programs. Over many decades, Dr. Molina has demonstrated a sustained commitment to medical history through service as a trustee of The Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and involvement with the Osler Library at McGill, alongside participation in bibliophilic organizations that support both preservation and scholarship.

Member

Dr. Rolando del Maestro

Dr. Rolando del Maestro earned his MD from the University of Western Ontario and completed neurosurgical training before receiving a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Uppsala. He is the William Feindel Professor Emeritus in Neuro-Oncology at the McGill University Health Centre, Chiarperson and Honorary Osler Librarian of McGill's Osler Library of the History of Medicine, and past president of the American Osler Society. Dr. del Maestro is a physician-scholar whose career bridges medical education, neuro-oncology, and the history of medicine. In recent years he has led neurosurgical simulation research at the Montreal Neurological Hospital, with work advancing resident training through virtual virtual-reality simulation and AI-enabled learning tools.

Secretary and Treasurer

Gideon Manning, PhD.

Gideon Manning is an internationally recognized academic leader and scholar with more than 20 years of experience working at the intersection of the history of medicine, science and philosophy. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his PhD from the University of Chicago.

Since then, Dr. Manning has served on the faculties of the College of William and Mary, California Institute of Technology, Claremont Graduate University, and directed the Cedars-Sinai Program in the History of Medicine.

An accomplished speaker who has delivered more than 100 lectures, Dr. Manning's research has been supported by prominent worldwide cultural and educational institutions, including the Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which awarded him a "New Directions Fellowship" to attend medical school at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Read his Letter from the Founding Director.