History Professor Inaugural Recipient of New Fellowship in History of Medicine

Assistant History Professor Dr. Andrew Simpson has been selected by the U.S. National Library of Medicine as one of the five inaugural recipients of its Michael E. DeBakey Fellowship in the History of Medicine.

Thanks to the fellowship, Simpson will have the opportunity to undertake his research project, Making the Medical Metropolis: Health Care and the Post-Industrial Transformation of Pittsburgh and Houston, onsite in the History of Medical Division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, with access to the Michael E. DeBakey archives there. The research is a modification of Simpson’s doctoral dissertation, which he is currently drafting as a book that he plans to publish.

Simpson’s research and the fellowship are closely intertwined because of the work that DeBakey—a renowned surgeon, educator and medical statesmen—did as one of the key players in developing Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine into a world-class medical center.

According to Simpson, his own research examines the changing business of medicine from the mid-1940s to the present and its relationship to community development in cities such as Pittsburgh and Houston.

DeBakey’s pioneering work in vascular surgery and on the artificial heart helped to establish Houston as a global destination for complex surgical procedures,” said Simpson. “In my chapter on marketing medicine, I examine how Dr. DeBakey, as well as his rival Dr. Denton Cooley, understood that their work had the potential to help Houston rebrand itself as a hub of medical innovation.”

The fellowship will allow Simpson to conduct new research for numerous chapters of his book utilizing the DeBakey archives, which contains vast resources on DeBakey’s work as a medical statesman who forged foreign partnerships, his long service as the chancellor of Baylor College of Medicine and his role as an innovator who saw economic value in developing new ways to save lives.

Over the next year, Simpson and the other fellows will conduct their research at the NLM, consult with NLM staff to improve the library’s knowledge of the collection and author at least one guest blog post for Circulating Now, the library’s blog.