iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Andrew Lea, MD, PhD

Jeffrey Yost @justcode.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

CBI's MOSAICS (Meanings, Ontologies & Structures of AI in Culture & Society) Symposium Program/Registration now open (link below). Org. Cmt.: Sareeta Amrute; @babintsevak.bsky.social @anitachan.bsky.social; G. Con Diaz; me. 32 terrific critical AI scholars. Oct 15-16. cse.umn.edu/cbi/mosaics-...

Poster/flyer for CBI's MOSAICS Symposium. Photos of keynote speakers Paula Chakravartty, Roderic Crooks, Tiara Roxanne, Janet Vertesi, image of a laptop keyboard with hands typing, co-sponsors names and logos.

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Jerry Chen @jcsalterego.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

hey quick question are we in hell

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Delighted to share that my book DIGITIZING DIAGNOSIS (@hopkinspress.bsky.social) has been awarded CBI's Human-Computer Interaction History Prize! Especially honored to follow last year's winners, Tom Mullaney and Brad Myers. Grateful to CBI for the award and for supporting work in computing history!

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Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

📆 A week from today 📆 - @andrewlea.bsky.social will be speaking at Corner Society! Register to attend in person or on Zoom here: www.raom.org/event-6469091

raom.org

Rochester Academy of Medicine - The Corner Society "Who's in Whose Pocket? Reference Tools, Industry Interests, and the Quest for Therapeutic Reform"

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

In case you missed it, please check out the shortlisted titles for @aahmhistmed.bsky.social's 2026 George Rosen Prize! It was an honor to serve on the selection committee. There's nothing more energizing than reading so much pathbreaking #histmed scholarship. histmed.org/2026-george-...

histmed.org

2026 George Rosen Prize Shortlist

George Rosen Prize Shortlist The George Rosen Prize is awarded in odd years to one or more authors/creators of an article, essay, edited volume, museum exhibition, film, or other significant contribut...

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American Association for the History of Medicine @aahmhistmed.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

The AAHM is pleased to share the 2026 shortlists for the George Rosen Prize and the William H. Welch Medal. View the complete shortlists on the AAHM website (www.histmed.org). Congratulations to all the finalists on this significant achievement!

histmed.org

American Association for the History of Medicine

Founded in 1925, the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) is a professional association of historians, physicians, nurses, archivists, curators, librarians, and others. The AAHM pro...

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Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Corner Society is back for the spring semester! This month's speaker is our very own @andrewlea.bsky.social - come out to the Rochester Academy of Medicine (or watch on Zoom) to hear his talk "Who's in Whose Pocket? Reference Tools, Industry Interests, and the Quest for Therapeutic Reform"

GEORGE WASHINGTON CORNER SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE

Who's in Whose Pocket? Reference Tools, Industry Interests, and the Quest for Therapeutic Reform

Wednesday, February 25, 2026
5:30 pm Lecture
6:30 - 7:15 pm Social Gathering

Physicians have carried practical guides for centuries. These tools—variously called “manuals," “handbooks,” “pocket remembrancers,” or more commonly, “vade mecums” (Latin for “go with me”) — served as on-the-go memory stimuli. Nineteenth-century manuals, such as Robert Hooper’s The Physician’s Vade-Mecum sought to “compress” for the busy physician the vast expanse of descriptive medical knowledge into a useful companion. This act of compression resulted in a knowledge bottleneck: with such limited space, including certain kinds of information invariably came at the expense of other types of information. The vade mecum would therefore become a contested site over what counted as “appropriate,” “important,” and “rational” medical knowledge. This lecture explores these themes by focusing on the American Medical Association’s Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry (CPC), which, in the early 1930s, created a vade mecum to counter the excesses of proprietary drug manufacturers and inculcate a rational approach to medical therapeutics.

Andrew Lea is an assistant professor of health humanities and bioethics at the University of Rochester and a general internist at the Strong Memorial Hospital. His research explores the history of artificial intelligence, communications media, and information technology in medicine and has appeared in leading historical and medical journals, including Isis and the New England Journal of Medicine. His first book, Digitizing Diagnosis, examined early efforts to computerize medical diagnosis and decision-making. He is working on his second book, Aid to Thought: A History of the Peripheral Brain in Medicine.

Register here: https://www.raom.org/event-6469091

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NEJM AI @ai.nejm.org · 14/01/2026

A new Perspective situates contemporary concerns about AI-driven cognitive offloading within a long history of debates over how reference tools — from early medical handbooks to digital systems — reshape viewpoints on clinical expertise. Learn more: nejm.ai/49gfudj @andrewlea.bsky.social

“The ultimate effects of AI on the cognitive practices of health care professionals will depend on the decisions we make in integrating the technology within the social world of medicine.”

Perspective
“Cognitive Aids, Artificial Intelligence, and Deskilling in Medicine: The History of an Enduring Anxiety” by Andrew S. Lea, M.D., D.Phil.

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Cyrus Mody @ccmmody.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

we're hiring in STS @fasosmaastricht.bsky.social! deadline coming up soon (February 8). focus is the social science-y corners of STS preferably w/ some interest in sustainability & environment - but interpreted broadly. vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl/job/Maastric...

vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl

Assistant Professor Science, Technology and Society Studies

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Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Click here to listen to a *phenomenal* interview from Marsha Wittink on med-psych units, patient perspectives, and the health humanities. Co-hosted with our med student and hist med PhD Michael Healey Second episode of the this season of "In the Same Vein" now live! open.spotify.com/episode/7EZO...

open.spotify.com

S2 Ep2: On Med-Psych Units with Marsha Wittink, MD, MBE

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Shared courtesy of my Penn History colleague, Ben Nathans

Image: A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” engraving, originally published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. Each segment of the snake has the name of a university sent Trump’s “compact”: Texas, AZ, Vanderbilt, USC, Dartmouth, UVA, Brown, Penn, MIT.

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Adam Wickberg @adamwickberg.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

We are hiring! Prospective PhD students in environmental history, history of science, history of technology and STS interested in the climate and environmental impacts of AI look here. Please share in your networks. #envhist #histsci #AI #anthropcoene

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Hanna Lucia Worliczek @hworliczek.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

#Job #PhilSci #HPS Fully funded PhD-position at Bielefeld University, Philosophy of the Biomedical Sciences), deadline Oct 30, 2025 Job ad: uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org/job/view/451... On the program: blogs.uni-bielefeld.de/blog/isosnew...

uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org

Doctoral Researcher in Philosophy of the Medical S...

The History and Philosophy of Medicine Group, led by Prof. Lara Keuck, is looking for a highly motivated candidate for a three-year PhD project in phi...

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Curious policy for a store where the average pharmacy pickup time seems to exceed 30 minutes…

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Thanks to @renfro.bsky.social for a wonderful discussion of his new book THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RYAN WHITE (@uncpress.bsky.social) at the Corner Society for the History of Medicine & Rochester Academy of Medicine!

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

Excited to be giving Grand Rounds at URMC on Sep 9! I'll be discussing the evolving tools doctors have used to grapple with information overload in medicine: from pocket guide to artificial intelligence. Come by the Class of 62 Auditorium if you're in Rochester, or tune in via Zoom if you're not.

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

New York Times story with profiles of researchers whose grants were terminated. [Gift Link] www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | America First? Not When It Comes to Your Health.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 12/08/2025

1. "'Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy," Kennedy said." It's literally a vital feature of both science and of representative democracy. I've written a fair bit about trust in expertise as a vital mechanism in the collective epistemology of science.

scrippsnews.com

RFK Jr. in interview with Scripps News: ‘Trusting the experts is not science’

HHS Secretary RFK Jr. sat down with Scripps News for a wide-ranging interview, discussing mRNA vaccine funding policy changes and a recent shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Emily Moin @emilymoin.com · 10/08/2025

I increasingly believe that having that much money distorts one's human interactions such that billionaires are in a constant state of progressive moral decay. The option to avoid this fate by philanthropically disposing of your gross excess assets is permanently available yet rarely exercised.

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

When I say "technology" I mean the textual means by which experimentalists create virtual witnessing (h/t Steven Shapin).

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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

When I say “technology” I mean the codex

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Well, everyone, I've found it: the academic paper with the worst pun title possible. The search can finally end. This cannot be beat.

Paper from "Policy: Issues and Actions," vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1996): Zondi Masiza and Chris Landsberg, "FISSION FOR COMPLIMENTS? South Africa and the 1995 extension of nuclear non-proliferation"

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Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Our first Corner Society lecture is taking place on Wednesday, September 10, at 5:30 pm at the Rochester Academy of Medicine! @renfro.bsky.social will be giving a talk titled "Ryan White, Hemophilia, and the HIV/AIDS Epidemic" You can register here: www.raom.org/event-6257176

GEORGE WASHINGTON CORNER SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE

"Ryan White, Hemophilia, and the HIV/AIDS Epidemic"

Wednesday, September 10
5:30 Lecture
6:30 - 7:15 Social Gathering

Rochester Academy of Medicine
1441 East Avenue, Rochester, NY

In the 1980s, as HIV/AIDS ravaged queer communities and communities of color in the United States and beyond, a straight white teenager named Ryan White emerged as the face of the epidemic. Diagnosed with hemophilia at birth, Ryan contracted AIDS through contaminated blood products. In 1985, he became a household name after he was barred from attending his Indiana middle school because he had AIDS. As Ryan appeared on nightly news broadcasts and graced the covers of popular magazines, he was embraced by music icons and well-known athletes, achieving a curious kind of stardom. This talk will focus on Ryan's experiences with hemophilia and AIDS, as well as the contested meanings of his life, death, and afterlives.

Paul Renfro is an associate professor of history and an affiliate faculty member in the Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Florida State University. He is the author of Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State (Oxford University Press, 2020) and The Life and Death of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in America (University of North Carolina Press, 2024), which earned an honorable mention in the general nonfiction category of the Florida Book Awards.

For more information or to become a Corner Society member, please contact Christine Slobogin, PhD, at Christine_Slobogin@URMC.Rochester.edu.

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Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

The new Corner Society schedule is live! I'm so pleased to be able to welcome exciting history of medicine scholars to Rochester during this academic year. Even if you're not in Rochester, each of these lectures will be available via Zoom (with free registration).

Flyer for the:
George Washington Corner Society for the History of Medicine
2025-2026 Season

5:30 Lecture
6:30 - 7:15 Social Gathering

Rochester Academy of Medicine
1441 East Avenue

Wednesday September 10
Paul Renfro
Florida State University
"Ryan White, Hemophiia, and the HIV/AIDS Epidemic"

Wednesday, September 29
Courtney Thompson
Mississippi State University
"A Calculus of Compassion: Medicine, Emotion, and Identity in Nineteenth-Century America"

Wednesday, November 19
Mary Fissell
Johns Hopkins University
"Savin, Sex, and Scandal: Rethinking Abortion in Early Modern Anglo-America"

Wednesday, February 25
Andrew Lea
University of Rochester
"Who's in Whose Pocket? Reference Tools, Industry Interests, and the Quest for Therapeutic Reform"

Wednesday, March 25
Ayah Nuriddin
Yale University
"Black Eugenics and the Struggle for Equality"

Wednesday, April 15
Anna Arabindan-Kesson
Princeton University
"Case Notes: Art History's Medical Imaginaries"

For more information or to become a Corner Society member, please contact Christine Slobogin, PhD, at Christine_Slobogin@URMC.Rochester.edu.

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Friends don't let friends wear white-soled dress shoes. This fad cannot die out soon enough.

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

in which disciplines is the all-lower-case-email most prevalent?

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

Can someone tell him that by "War on Cancer" we don't mean a war on its behalf?

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Alex Parry, Ph.D. @safetyworkhstm.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

As a historian of injuries and product safety, this one feels personal. The CPSC can’t do its job without independent commissioners. Let’s review some of the cases that led to the establishment of the agency in the first place:

nbcnews.com

Supreme Court allows Trump to fire members of product safety agency

A judge had reinstated three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal agency set up by Congress to be independent of political pressure.

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

With bad-faith political attacks on science and medicine mounting, the editors-in-chief of @nejm.org and @jama.com team up in @washingtonpost.com to defend the importance--and independence--of medical journals. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

washingtonpost.com

Opinion | This system is critical to Americans’ health. We must defend it.

Medical progress depends on independent journals to advance science without political interference.

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Carsten Timmermann @ctimmermann.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Everyone who thinks that AI will provide magic answers to all our medical problems should read Andrew Lea’s excellent book. www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...

press.jhu.edu

Digitizing Diagnosis

Medicine, Minds, and Machines in Twentieth-Century America

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

The liberal justices may as well self-immolate on the Supreme Court steps at this point.

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

Always in awe of the self restraint of New Yorker staff writers who forgo their cartoon rendering as a profile pic.

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Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

I'll be giving an online book launch talk for the military medicine group Friends of Millbank on July 25! 1:30 pm EST; 5:30 pm BST. You can register here: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

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Jules Skotnes-Brown @julesskotnesbrown.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Nice to see Segregated Species on display at #BSHS2025

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

🔊🔊🔊 ALL @hopkinspress.bsky.social books--including DIGITIZING DIAGNOSIS--are available for 40% OFF through July 10! Discount code: H4JUL25 www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...

press.jhu.edu

Digitizing Diagnosis

Medicine, Minds, and Machines in Twentieth-Century America

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Mark Lemley @marklemley.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Once you understand that "communist" and "socialist" in modern political discourse means "a moderate Republican circa 1977" it's much easier to understand

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Benjamin Mazer @mazer.us · 19/06/2025

If you're a student or trainee interested in science communication, media production, and journalism, consider working with me as a communications fellow! We are putting together an exciting new podcast on digital health. www.nature.com/npjdigitalme...

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Jason Moore @moorejh.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

I heard this morning that my informatics colleague Dr. Atul Butte passed after a battle with cancer. He was a giant in the field & inspired many of us over his distinguished career. He was a passionate champion of the power of big data & his impact on our field is immeasurable. RIP Atul & thanks.

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Paul Sax @paulsaxmd.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

The head of HHS said he’d preserve ACIP. Then he fired the entire committee. Now a new panel -- with mostly unclear expertise in clinical trials, vaccines, and ID -- is in place. Time for high alert for changes that could seriously affect public health. #IDSky blogs.jwatch.org/hiv-id-obser...

blogs.jwatch.org

Why the Sudden Firing of ACIP Members Should Put Every Clinician on High Alert

There are certain irrefutable verities when, like me, you’re an infectious diseases specialist married to a pediatrician. Here are our top two, which are deeply interrelated: Infectious deaths in chil...

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Maxwell Smith, PhD @maxwellsmith.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

More needs to be made of the distinction between trust and trustworthiness. Lower levels of trust in vaccines and ACIP are more likely a function of attempts to actively undermine trust from the likes of RFK Jr and company, not the trustworthiness of ACIP.

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Stumbled upon (and purchased!) LAB DOG by @bolman.bsky.social at the @mitpress.bsky.social bookstore. Excited to dig in! cc @uchicagopress.bsky.social

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Judge Luttig @judgeluttig.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

the administration suffered a 96 percent loss rate in the courts in May. Trump is losing these cases for a simple reason: They’re breaking the damn law. They’re invoking old and obscure laws and insisting that they confer upon them the authority to do things they don’t have the authority to do.

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Andrew Lea, MD, PhD @andrewlea.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Saying that the Trump administration seeks to "reshape" American science and biomedicine is a bit like saying that the Death Star sought to reshape Alderaan. The word you're looking for is destruction.

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Rob Patro @robp.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Damn... I wonder why scientists wouldn't want to come to the US to compete at the highest levels for highly-restricted funding that then gets pulled surreptitiously for some imagined reason or no reason at all, all while being vilified by the federal government for their work? A mystery! 🤔

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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

"I swore I’d never give Harvard money — Trump changed my mind." 💯. Exact same here. www.slowboring.com/p/trumps-tar...

slowboring.com

give to Harvard

Last week, I did something that I’d never done before.

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Marc Lipsitch @mlipsitch.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

As the quality of health advice becomes more politicized and arbitrary, and less science-based Americans are going to have to turn to state health officials (some of them) or other countries for good advice.

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Laura Davulis @davulis.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Good morning! We’re hiring an editorial assistant (hybrid.) Books books books books books! jobs.jhu.edu/job/Baltimor...

jobs.jhu.edu

Editorial Assistant

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