Acadia Institute Ethnographic and Medical Sociology Research Collection

Interview transcripts and memos, field notes, correspondence, subject files, reprints, and newspaper clippings documenting multiple ethnographical medical sociology research projects conducted by Judith Swazey and Renée Fox, working independently and jointly under the auspices of the Acadia Institute which primarily focused on social, ethical, and policy issues in biomedical research and healthcare.

Series 1 contains research files created by Drs. Swazey and Fox over the course of various research projects. The Ethnography of Organ Transplantation and Artificial Organs subseries makes up the bulk of Series 1 and is comprised of ethnographic and related primary source materials collected by Fox and Swazey on the development and clinical introduction of organ transplantation (renal, cardiac, and liver) and artificial vital organs (dialysis and artificial hearts) from 1951-1987. These materials include interviews with physicians, nurses, and technicians as well as field notes of Swazey and Fox's observations while on rounds with physcians at major transplantation and dialysis centers in the United States. The interviews and field notes address a range of topics, including the development of transplant and dialysis therapies in practice, the emotional trauma of these therapies, patient selection, support systems, patients' quality-of-life, and end-of-life choices. Series 1 also includes records of Swazey and Fox's cross-cultural studies (e.g. the People's Republic of China and Majuro, Marshall Islands). Subseries 1 contains one file of interviews and field notes collected by Fox tracking the emergence of clinical research in Belgium post WWII with a focus on the pivotal role that American academic medical centers played in training European clinical investigators.

Also of particular interest is the Series 1 Chlorpromazine and Psychopharmacology subseries, which is comprised of primary source materials that Swazey collected in France and the U.S. relating to the development and introduction of chlorpromazine, the first "major tranquilizer or neuroleptic with anti-schizophrenic efficacy." Series 1, Biomedical Research Innovation Opportunities subseries contains interviews that Swazey and Stanley J. Reiser conducted between 1966-1967 with leading figures in biomedical research and health care, such as NIH Director James Shannon. Swazey and Reiser carried out this research for the Harvard University Program on Technology and Society and focused on what the informants saw as major research and therapeutic innovation avenues in the next several decades and the sorts of social, ethical, and policy issues those opportunities might generate.

Series 2 is comprised of field notes, correspondence, and primary source materials from Swazey and Fox's medical sociology research and teaching journeys to the People's Republic of China in 1981 (Fox), 1981 (Fox and Swazey), and 1985 (Fox). These materials, in part, focus on China's shift into advanced medical technology and tertiary care, cancer research, and the reconstitution of the medical and nursing professions after the Cultural Revolution.

Series 3 documents undergraduate and graduate courses on medical sociology and ethics that Swazey taught. The bulk of the series contains the syllabus, outlines, and weekly readings for a course on personhood titled "The Meaning of Person" which Swazey taught in 1984.