The Consortium hosted its first Visiting Professor, Dr. Megan J. Davies, who joined us in January 2014. Dr. Davies is an associate professor at York University and a BC historian with research interests in madness, marginal and alternative health practices, old age, rural medicine and social welfare. She received her PhD in history from McGill University and subsequently held a Hannah post-doctoral fellowship and a Wellcome Trust fellowship – both at the History of Medicine Unit at the University of Glasgow. She has published in a variety of journals and scholarly collections and has published a book, Into the House of Old: A History of Residential Care in British Columbia (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003).

Dr. Davies is currently involved in a large international study of promising practices in residential care for the elderly, headed by Professor Pat Armstrong. As principal investigator (along with Dr. Erika Dyck) of the national CIHR-funded project Open Doors/Closed Minds: Locating Mental Health After the Asylum, she is currently engaging in curating a large research website to showcase the multiple projects that larger project has supported. Outside of standard academic formats, Dr. Davies has coordinated two secondary school teaching sites on historyofmadness.ca, which is a team member for the post-secondary on-line education project History in Practice: Community-Informed Mental Health Curriculum, and was executive producer and collective member on the documentary project, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Stories from MPA http://historyofmadness.ca/the-inmates-are-running-the-asylum/

During her visit, Dr. Davies brought her extensive experience in the development of educational resources in health history to the School, presented on her research, and met with students. On January 27, 2014 Dr. Davies offered a Health History Resources Workshop on new educational health history resources and ideas for teaching and learning. This workshop was organized jointly by the Consortium and the Elizabeth Kenny McCann Teaching Matters Scholar Award initiative.

For inquiries email us at nursinghistory@nursing.ubc.ca

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