From Healers to Killers: Nazi Medicine & the Role of the Professional

Lunch will start at noon in VEC 1302/1303 followed by the lecture from 12:15pm to 1:15pm.

About the Talk

In pursuit of the Nazi regime’s biomedical vision, medical professionals became central to enacting policy and advancing initiatives that ultimately constituted a role reversal—from that of healer to killer. From the pseudoscience of racial hygiene to the role of doctors in forced sterilizations, human experimentation, and mass M**der, we will examine the ways that medical professionals in Nazi Germany were complicit in and active agents of atrocity, their motivations and choices, and explore their significance in medical ethics today.

About the Speaker

Rebecca Scott holds a Bachelor’s degree in English literature from Louisiana State University and a Master’s degree in Holocaust & Genocide Studies. After completing her graduate studies at Kean University, she worked as an Academic Specialist for the Master of Arts in Holocaust & Genocide Studies program, overseeing the staging of workshops, lectures, conferences, and events featuring internationally recognized leaders in the field, as well as planning the first multi-national study delegation to sites of former genocide. Before joining Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE), she worked in higher education as an editor, project manager and lecturer. She is currently FASPE’s Director of Programs, overseeing the planning, execution, and curricular development of FASPE’s six flagship fellowship programs for students and early-career professionals, as well as curating continued programming on ethical issues for an alumni community of over 900. She has taught a wide variety of history and writing courses, and designed several courses on genocide, human rights, and the history, literature, and philosophical implications of the Holocaust.

Please email [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns. More details about Columbia's Center for Clinical Medical Ethics can be found here: https://columbiamedicine.org/ethicscenter/index.html

Host or Publisher Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics