2006-2007

News Release

REF NO.: 158

SUBJECT: Conference to look at history of sickness and health in remote north

DATE: April 23, 2007

A special conference on Saturday, May 12, 2007, will look at the history of sickness and health in northern remote and rural regions. The day’s sessions are open to the public and feature keynote speakers Anne Budgell, CBC journalist, and Nigel Markham, filmmaker, who will present and discuss their film The Last Days of Okak, which deals with the devastating impact of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Labrador.
The conference takes place in the main auditorium of the Health Sciences Centre from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. There is no registration or fee required for attending, and it is open to anyone interested in the practice and history of rural and remote medicine. Free parking is available in Lot 9 off Clinch Ave. A full agenda can be viewed at www.med.mun.ca/comhealth/ or can be obtained by calling (709) 777-8673.
People who lived and worked in remote northern, Arctic, and coastal settlements were subject to illness and injury – perhaps even more so than their urban counterparts. Yet our understanding of the history of medicine and health care in these pockets of population remains incomplete.
This conference explores the challenges and rewards of practicing extreme medicine in northern latitudes between the 18th and 20th centuries.
Over 20 invited historians, geographers and demographers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, England, Scotland, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador will gather in St. John’s to discuss the history of rural, remote and isolated medicine in the northern.
Funding for this conference comes from AMS, Memorial University’s Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Arts, the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Applied Health Research, and the City of St. John’s.

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