The Fielding H. Garrison Lecture: Great Doctor History

For decades, physicians wrote much of the history of medicine, often "great man" histories that celebrated their colleagues' accomplishments as part of a celebratory historical narrative. Beginning in the 1970s, social historians challenged this type of scholarship, arguing that it was Whiggish, omitted the flaws of the medical profession, left patients out of the story, and ignored issues of gender, race, and class. This Garrison Lecture revisits this history through the prism of my recent book, The Good Doctor: A Father, a Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics, which is essentially a biography of my physician father, Phillip Lerner, and an autobiography. In the talk I ask whether there is true historical value to biography or whether it should serve only as an adjunct to "real" social history. I also historicize my own career, something I chose not to do in the book.