Why hospitals stopped being hospitable

Hospitality — and hospitals. Two words that share a root, but whose meanings often seem at odds with each other. IDEAS traces the historical roots of hospitals, the tension between hospitality and discipline that has defined hospitals throughout their history, and what it means to create a hospitable hospital in the 21st century. 

*This is the third episode in our series, The Idea of Home, which originally aired on June 15, 2022.

People you will hear in this podcast:

Rachel Kowalsky is a pediatric emergency physician at New York—Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. She co-created a website called Our Break Room to share poems and stories for healthcare workers.

Joshna Maharaj is a Toronto-based chef and activist, and the author of Take Back the Tray: Revolutionizing Food in Hospitals, Schools and Other Institutions.

Kathy Loon is executive lead for Indigenous collaboration & relations at Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre (SLMHC) and a member of Slate Falls First Nation.

Carole Rawcliffe is professor emerita of medieval history at the University of East Anglia. She specializes in the history of medieval medicine and early hospitals. 

Kevin Siena is a professor of history at Trent University. He specializes in the history of medicine and the history of hospitals in England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. 

David Goldstein is an associate professor of English at York University, where he is also the coordinator of the creative writing program. He is the co-editor of Early Modern Hospitality. 

This episode also includes a clip from a 2016 CBC Radio interview with Maureen Lux, professor of history at Brock University and the author of Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada.