Who to contact about a hypothetical medical diagnosis for research?
January 10, 2018 4:43 PM   Subscribe

As part of my research, I want to explore a possible cause of death in a historical case, based on notes by the doctor who examined the patient. This is for academic research, so I would like to be able to give proper attribution (and not claim that I magically knew potential diagnoses). Who can I contact about this?

The historic doctor's notes are very basic, and may not point to anything at all, or they may indicate some possibilities. They're along the lines of "patient displayed certain behavior before death, and upon examining the body I noticed some lesions and swelling on one particular organ," along with some notes about behavior and environment in the days preceding death.

This is not the lynchpin of my research, but it would be valuable for me to speculate on possible causes of death that may have been overlooked at the time.

For various reasons related to my school's health plan, I cannot ask my own doctor. I was thinking of emailing a professor at UCSF or another medical school, but jeez, who? I'm not sure who would be willing to speak about this. For all I know, this is the sort of thing no doctor would want to have their name associated with.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk to Grab Bag (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: And to clarify, this is a case from 150 years ago, so I would imagine there are no privacy concerns. All medical notes here are public record.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:47 PM on January 10, 2018


When I wanted to understand the cause of death on a Victorian death certificate, I emailed the Wellcome Collection, who have a lot of expertise about the history of medicine, and the Victoria email list, both of which were very helpful.
posted by paduasoy at 4:49 PM on January 10, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: You might seek out the people who participate in and run the annual University of Maryland Medical Alumni Association Historical Clinicopathological Conference. Every year they try to diagnose a historical figure (here is a link to past "cases" they have done.) The director of the conference Philip Mackowiak possibly might be able to recommend someone to you.
posted by gudrun at 5:49 PM on January 10, 2018 [7 favorites]


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