29th/30th History of Medicine Days Conference successfully run on Zoom® from March 18-20, 2021

Events of “historical magnitude” made it necessary that this year’s annual and nation-wide History of Medicine Days Conference be delivered as a virtual conference due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.  In fact, last year’s conference had to be cancelled only days before the History of Medicine Days were about to take place, due to the arrival of the virus in Canada.  So, this combined conference (29^th and 30^th HMDs) was the organizing teams’ – Frank W. Stahnisch, Alberta Medical Foundation/Hannah Professorship in the History of Medicine and Health Care, Marcia Garcia, Conference Coordinator, Department of Community Health Sciences, and Sophia Traxler, Teaching Assistant, Department of History – first ever Zoom® conference organizing experience.  Under the “benevolent influences” of Greek healing figures Apollo and Hippocrates, it seemed, the technology ran smoothly, major glitches were avoided, and feedback was received that it “was the most engaging zoom event that [students] have been a part of during the pandemic.” Kudos to all participants from the history department as well, who helped making the virtual conference a success, including Professor Stortz and his special featured lecture on “Intellectual and Professional Challenges of Women Scientists and Medical Researchers at the University of Toronto, 1930-1945,” Professors David Marshall, Paul Stortz, and Frank W. Stahnisch as chairs, as well as several students from our history courses with their exiting research projects and poster presentations over the three-day long conference.  The full program can be found archived on the HMDs website, including information on the two keynote lectures by Professor Geoffrey Hudson, Northern Ontario School of Medicine (Canada) and Dr. Larry Zeidman, Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University Chicago (USA).