The team of the discharge letter is interdisciplinary and assembles perspectives from literary studies, history of medicine and medical ethics, which implies both exemplary and empirical approaches. Lead by three project applicants who represent these interdisciplinary approaches
Martina King
(PI Cultural History and 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’.
Ralf J. Jox
(PI Ethics)
Ralf J. Jox is 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 is researching about Understanding altruism at the end of life.
Felix Rietmann
(PI History)
Felix Rietmann is SNSF-funded assistant professor 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, 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.
Angela Gencarelli
(Senior Researcher Cultural History and Literary Studies)
Angela Gencarelli is a senior researcher at the University of Fribourg. She is an expert in interdisciplinary and transmedial narratology, narratives in science, and praxeology of genres. Before joining the discharge letter project, she held research positions in German Studies and Cultural Studies at the University of Graz, Luneburg, Bonn, Frankfurt and Florence.
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
(Doctoral Student Cultural History and Literary Studies)
Tom Behrendt is a doctoral researcher with 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, development, and stabilization of the hospital discharge letter between 1900 and 1970. Through systematic analysis of patient records from Swiss hospital archives, the project reconstructs the evolution of this pivotal medical document from an informal epistolary correspondence to a highly stylized clinical writing system and demonstrates how the discharge letter contributed to the transmission and the production of medical thinking and cognition.
Sophie Püchel
(Doctoral Student 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 “Hospital Discharge Letters,” Püchel investigate 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.
Frédéric Mader
(Research Assistant History)
Frédéric Mader is a research assistant in the project about the discharge letter. They worked with Felix Rietmann in his project Raising a well grown child. Frédéric is currently finishing their masters at the University of Zurich, studying contemporary history and gender studies (University of Bern). Maders fields of research includes trans histories of Switzerland and medical history in Switzerland as well as the history of knowledge in broader terms, especially including global and postcolonial frameworks.