In a phrase, I do social justice work in medicine. I'm a medical humanist, writer, speaker, patient advocate, a Guggenheim Fellow, and an Associate Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics in the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago. (That’s way too many prepositions, I know.) I hold a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana University. The majority of my professional energies have gone to improving the medical and social treatment of people born with socially-challenging bodies, including people with intersex, conjoinment, dwarfism, and cleft lip. I frequently work with affected adults, parents, and clinicians to make things better in the social and medical worlds. The question that motivates many of my projects is this:

Why not change minds instead of bodies?

I also think, write, and speak about the politics of science, medicine, and anatomy, and sometimes I consciously try to change those politics. I’m constitutionally inclined to use history to help create a more just future.

As part of my advocacy and public education efforts, I do a lot of work with the media. My three largest research projects have all been covered in the New York Times (on intersex; conjoined twins; and the Bailey book controversy). I've also appeared on dozens of national and international television and radio programs, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, CNN International, Discovery Health, HBO, and the BBC. (But I have not always worn as much lipstick as my mother would like, even on the radio.) My books, including One of Us:  Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal and Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex (both from Harvard University Press), have received positive reviews in the New Yorker, the New England Journal of Medicine, the London Review of Books, JAMA, and Nature, and elsewhere.

My editorials and essays on science and medicine have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. By invitation, I am a regular columnist for the Hastings Center’s Bioethics Forum. For about seven years I worked as one of the directors of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), a policy and  advocacy organization for people born with what used to be called 'hermaphroditisms'. Nowadays I sometimes do pro bono, private historical work for people coping with unusual personal medical histories.

Although I sometimes get labeled a "postmodernist" because I write and speak about the social complexities of science and medicine, in fact I would have to label myself a raving modernist. I really believe in the power of science to improve our knowledge and our lives.

For fun, I like to give advice about academic office interior design, to ice fish, and to cook...but not all at the same time.

Relevant links:

1. ‣my c.v.
   

2. ‣updates on my work
   

3. ‣how to invite me to speak
   

4. ‣who funds my work
   

5. ‣my mystique (go figure)