Kylie Smith

The Empire of Depression: A Conversation with Jonathan Sadowsky

Professor Jonathan Sadowsky, Theodore J. Castele Professor at Case Western Reserve University, is the author of two important works on the history of psychiatry: Imperial Bedlam: Institutions of Madness in Colonial Southwest Nigeria and Electroconvulsive Therapy in America: The Anatomy of a Medical Controversy. Sadowsky is well known in the field for his nuanced and… Read more →

Moving Beyond Florence: Why We Need to Decolonize Nursing History

When I suggested the “Beyond Florence” series to the team at Nursing Clio, I didn’t set out to “cancel” Florence Nightingale. In my introductory essay, I described the environment that gave rise to my concerns about how nursing history was being represented in both the year of COVID-19 and the International Year of the Nurse… Read more →

Beyond Florence: Valuing Nurses in the History of Health Care

Before COVID-19 was even a blip on the horizon, the World Health Organization had declared 2020 the Year of the Nurse and Midwife. This year was chosen because 2020 marks 200 years since the birth of the so-called Mother of Modern Nursing, Florence Nightingale. But Nightingale is a problematic figure for nursing. There is little… Read more →

Uncovering the History of Child Psychiatry: A Conversation with Deborah Blythe Doroshow

I recently had the pleasure of talking to Deborah Doroshow about her new book, Emotionally Disturbed: A History of Caring for America’s Troubled Children, which explores the development of Residential Treatment Centers (RTCs) for “emotionally disturbed” children. The book does a masterful job of explaining how this new category of mental illness came into being… Read more →