This history of hormones (endocrinology) is filled with daring medical sleuths, desperate parents and also, swindlers. There are doctors who have tinkered with hormones to devise life-saving therapies and shed light on the inner workings of our bodies. And yet, along the way, there have been hucksters exploiting the seeds of these discoveries to peddle quack cures touting all sorts of promises, including libido-boosters and anti-aging remedies. Randi Hutter Epstein, MD, MPH will separate the hype from hope and spotlight how discoveries and mishaps in the past shape our perceptions, our hopes, and our fears about hormones and hormone therapies today.
Randi Hutter Epstein, MD, MPH, is a medical writer, and serves at Yale University as the Writer in Residence at the medical school and lecturer in the English Department. She is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Randi has worked as a medical writer for the London bureau of The Associated Press and was the London bureau chief of Physicians’ Weekly. Her work focuses on the interplay between medicine and society. In other words, how cultural attitudes influence medical treatment, public health and research; and vice versa, how research and treatment influence societal perceptions of health and disease. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Parents, More, among other newspapers and magazines. She is also the author of Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank (released by W.W. Norton, Jan 2010) and AROUSED: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything (W.W. Norton, 2018). Randi earned a B.S. from The University of Pennsylvania where she studied the history and sociology of science; an M.S. from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; an M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine, and an M.P.H. from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Randi lives in New York City with her husband, Stuart Epstein. They have four grown children.
This event is sponsored by the Laura Kirchman Manuelidis '63 Science and Literary Arts Endowment Fund.