Duke Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative

Jason Ashe, PhD, ThM, MDiv is a Community Health Psychologist & Research Scientist, whose work explores religion and racism as psychosocial determinants of health. He focuses specifically on cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular disorder risk and health inequities among Black Americans. Dr. Ashe is a former Theology, Medicine, and Culture Fellow at Duke Divinity School, and joined us in Spring 2023 to offer this virtual seminar, "Racism Driver of Health Disparities, Outlier in Our Theology Of Illness."

The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative (TMC) at Duke Divinity School and the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine at Duke held a seminar entitled "Health Equity Is Not a Spectator Sport: A Radical Rerooting Using a Three Trees Analogy" on January 19th, 2023 with Abraham Nussbaum, MD. Dr. Nussbaum is Chief Education Officer at Denver Health and a Professor of Psychiatry and Assistant Dean of Graduate Medical Education at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is interviewed by TMC Co-Director, Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD.

In Auden’s poem “The Art of Healing,” he writes that “every sickness is a musical problem and every cure a musical solution.” Jazz and health care are two things we normally don’t think about together, let alone in the context of mental health. This conversation was recorded at the 2024 Practice & Presence gathering between theological ethicist Patrick Smith and physician and writer Brewer Eberly. They explores jazz and medicine as moral practice. How does jazz draw out metaphors that help us think about health care and clinical relationships differently? How does jazz teach us to lament and work with uncertainty? As we consider the hard things we have been made to see and hear in health care, how might jazz—a form of art born of oppression and pain—disrupt complacency and awaken us to new ways to live and to heal and to sing?

Dr. Emily Smith, Assistant Professor in Emergency Medicine and Assistant Research Professor of Global Health at Duke University, explores the intersection of faith, science, and global health through the lens of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Dr. Smith reflects on her experience during the COVID-19 pandemic as the voice behind 'Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist,' advocating for compassionate public health. Her presentation weaves data with a call to ethical action from a posture of solidarity and neighborly love rooted in both scientific and faith-based principles. This podcast aired in November, 2022.

The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative (TMC) live-streamed this seminar from the annual Practice & Presence gathering at Duke Divinity School on September 23rd, 2022. Brian Volck was interviewed by TMC Faculty member Dr. Martha Carlough for this conversation, entitled "The Art of Living as Creatures." Dr. Volck is a pediatrician and writer with an MD from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in creative nonfiction from Seattle Pacific University. He has provided pediatric care at an Indian Health Service hospital on the Navajo Reservation, at an inner-city community health center in Kentucky, rural clinics in Honduras, a storefront pediatric office, a university-affiliated combined internal medicine-pediatrics teaching practice, and a major teaching hospital. He currently divides his time working in Cincinnati as a pediatric hospitalist, the Navajo Reservation as a pediatrician and writer, and Baltimore, Maryland, where he lives.

The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative (TMC) at Duke Divinity School and the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine at Duke held a seminar on October 21, 2022 with John Swinton, BD, PhD, RMN, RMND titled “Can a Pill Do What the Holy Spirit Could Not?: Psychiatric Medication, Personhood, and Living Faithfully with Mental Health Challenges.” Dr. Swinton is a Professor in Practical Theology and Pastoral Care at the School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History at King's College University of Aberdeen. TMC Seminars are a semi-monthly gathering of faculty, students, clinicians, and others interested in the intersections of theology, medicine, and culture. For more information and recordings, visit tmc.divinity.duke.edu/seminar/​.

Dr. Kristin Collier, a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Michigan Medical School, dives deep into the intersection of theology and medicine. She argues that wisdom from theology is crucial for ethical clinical practices. Collier critiques the limitations of science alone in addressing moral dilemmas in healthcare and emphasizes the importance of recognizing human dignity. She discusses how a Christian perspective can shape medical ethics and advocates for nonviolent, dignity-affirming care. Additionally, she shares personal insights on faith and its impact on her medical vocation.

The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative (TMC) at Duke Divinity School and the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine at Duke held a seminar on September 9, 2022 with Brett McCarty, ThD titled “Churches Promoting Recovery: Faith-Based Responses to Substance Use Issues.” Dr. McCarty is an Assistant Research Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School; Associate Director of the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative; and Assistant Professor in Population Health Sciences, Duke School of Medicine. TMC Seminars are a semi-monthly gathering of faculty, students, clinicians, and others interested in the intersections of theology, medicine, and culture. For more information and recordings, visit tmc.divinity.duke.edu/seminar/​.

The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative (TMC) at Duke Divinity School and the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine at Duke held a seminar on April 1, 2022 with M. Therese Lysaught, PhD. Dr. Lysaught is theologian and bioethicist on faculty at the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics & Healthcare Leadership in the Stritch School of Medicine. She gave a talk titled "God V. Mammon: Neuroscience, Economics, and the Biopolitics of Morality." TMC Seminars are a semi-monthly gathering of faculty, students, clinicians, and others interested in the intersections of theology, medicine, and culture. For more information and recordings, visit https://tmc.divinity.duke.edu/seminar/​.

The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative (TMC) at Duke Divinity School and the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine at Duke held a seminar on March 4th, 2022 with Jennie Weiss Block, PhD, OP. Dr. Block is an author, theologian, and was the spiritual director of the late Paul Farmer. She gave a talk titled “What I Learned About Accompaniment from Paul Farmer.” TMC Seminars are a semi-monthly gathering of faculty, students, clinicians, and others interested in the intersections of theology, medicine, and culture. For more information and recordings, visit https://tmc.divinity.duke.edu/seminar/​.