The interdisciplinary team assembles perspectives from Cultural History & Literary Studies, History of Medicine, and Medical Ethics, combining both exemplary and empirical approaches. The project is coordinated by the three project applicants, Martina King, Ralf Jox, and Felix Rietmann, each of them representing one of these interdisciplinary approaches.
Prof. Dr. Martina King
PI Cultural History & Literary Studies
Martina King is a professor at the University of Fribourg and Chair of Medical Humanities. King has a background in medicine, german literature and medical history. Focusing on literary and medical texts and historical media culture, she has published in 2021 the book Das Mikrobielle in der Literatur und Kultur der Moderne. Zur Wissensgeschichte eines ephemeren Gegenstands (1880–1930). Since 2023, she leads the SNF project Medikale Räume in der Erzählliteratur des langen 20. Jahrhunderts.
Prof. Dr. Ralf J. Jox
PI Ethics
Ralf J. Jox is a professor for medical ethics at the Institute of Humanities in Medicine at the University of Lausanne as well as the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV). Jox has studied medicine as well as philosophy. He is the current director of the Insitute and leads the Unité d’éthique clinique at the CHUV. Currently, Jox’ research revolves around Understanding altruism at the end of life.
Ass. Prof. Dr. Felix Rietmann
PI History
Felix Rietmann is an SNSF-funded assistant professor at the Institute des Humanités en Médecine at the University of Lausanne (SNSF Starting Grant) in the history of medicine, focusing on the history of child health and the history of pharmaceuticals. Rietmann has a background in medicine and history. He leads a research group with the SNSF-Starting Grant project entitled Pediatric Drugs since 1945: From Local Practice to Global Politics.
Dr. Agnes Kandlbinder
Postdoc Ethics
Agnes Kandlbinder holds a PhD in applied ethics from the University of Zurich. Her expertise lies in moral philosophy, especially ethical innovation and technology development, and matters of justice regarding affected populations. She has previously worked in rehabilitation health care. In this project, Agnes investigates normative aspects of hospital discharge letters and possible shifts to the patient-provider relationship prompted by the use of AI.
Jasmine Lovey
Postdoc History
Jasmine Lovey is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne (CHUV). Currently, she is finishing her doctoral thesis about Les enfants au coeur de la vaccination antivariolique. Entre les prémices d’une organisation sanitaire et expériences vaccinales au début du 19e siècle. In the project, Lovey focuses on the social history of the discharge letter.
Tom Behrendt
PhD Cultural History & Literary Studies
Tom Behrendt is a doctoral researcher with an academic interest in the (cultural) history of science and medicine. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and completed his Masters in Cultural History & Theory at Berlin’s Humboldt University and the University of Amsterdam. Between 2019 and 2024, Tom worked both at the Humboldt University as well as he was part of the Max Plank Institute for the History of Science. In his current PhD project, Tom examines the emergence and development of the hospital discharge report between 1900 and 1970. Through analysis of patient records from Swiss hospital archives, his project reconstructs this pivotal medical document in the context of the hospital-system in the 20th century.
Hannah Lea Kusak
PhD Cultural History & Literary Studies
Hannah Kusák studied medicine and West Slavic languages, cultures, and literatures at the University of Leipzig. As a PhD student with Prof. Martina King, her research project examines the historical and literary dimensions of the medical case report, drawing on medical case histories from figures associated with the Second Viennese Medical School. In this context, she is also interested in the intercultural exchange between the German-speaking centre and the Slavic cultural regions of the Habsburg Monarchy.
Sophie Püchel
PhD Ethics
Sophie Püchel studied Philosophy with Linguistics and Phonetics at the University of Cologne, where she completed her Master’s with a focus on ethics. As part of this program, Sophie spent an exchange semester in Paris, specializing in medical ethics. In addition, she successfully completed the Research Master’s Program of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Cologne. As a PhD student with Prof. Ralf Jox in the SNF project, Püchel investigates the ethical dimensions of this standardized medical genre––from its historical development to current challenges posed by digitalization and AI-assisted communication. She is also engaged in the scientific as well as public dissemination of our research.