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George W. Gay Lecture
The George W. Gay Lecture is the oldest endowed lectureship at Harvard Medical School, and quite possibly the oldest medical ethics lectureship in the United States. The lectureship was established in 1917 by a $1,000 gift from Dr. George Washington Gay, an 1868 graduate of HMS. Since its inception, The Gay Lecture has been given by many of the nation’s most influential physicians, scientists, researchers and social observers, including Erich Fromm, Felix Frankfurter, Margaret Mead, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, E.O. Wilson, and Joshua Lederberg. Recent Gay Lectures have been given by Elie Wiesel, Marian Wright Edelman and Dame Cicely Saunders.
Past Gay Lecturers
| 1922 | Dr. John Bapst Blake, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard University |
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| 1923 | Dr. George W. Gay |
| 1924 | Dr. Walter P. Bowers, Managing Editor, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal |
| 1926 | Dr. George G. Sears, Clinical Prof. of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard University |
| 1927 | Dr. Francis Weld Peabody, Professor of Medicine, Harvard University |
| 1930 | Dr. Samuel B. Woodward, past President, Massachusetts Medical Society |
| 1931 | Dr. John M. Birnie, Secretary, New England Medical Society |
| 1932 | Dr. Roger I. Lee, Professor of Hygiene, Harvard University |
| 1933 | Dr. Robert B. Osgood, Professor Orthopedic Surgery, Harvard University Dr. Elliott P. Joslin, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard University |
| 1934 | Dr. Arthur H. Ruggles, Superintendent, Butler Hospital, Providence, RI Dr. John Homans, Clinical Professor of Surgery, Harvard University Dr. Joseph H. Pratt, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Tufts College |
| 1935 | Dr. James B. Herrick, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Rush Medical College |
| 1937 | Dr. Lawrence K. Lunt, Psychiatrist (Boston, Massachusetts) Dr. O.H. Perry Pepper, Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania |
| 1938 | Mr. Henry L. Shattuck, Treasurer, Harvard University Dr. Reginald Fitz, Lecturer on The History of Medicine, Harvard University Dr. Elton Mayo, Professor of Industrial Research, Harvard University |
| 1939 | Dr. Eliot Wadsworth, President, Boston Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Robert L. DeNormandie, Comm. on Ethics & Discipline, Mass. Med. Soc. Dr. Donald Guthrie, Assoc. Prof. of Surgery, Univ. of Penn. School of Med. |
| 1940 | Mr. Phillips Ketchum, Partner, Herrick, Smith, Donald, Farley & Ketchum |
| 1941 | Dr. Charles R. Austrian, Assoc. Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Univ., Dr. David Cheever, Associate Professor of Surgery, Emeritus, Harvard Univ. Dr. T. Grier Miller, Professor of Clinical Medicine, University of Pennsylvania |
| 1945 | Mr. Ben Amers Williams, Author |
| 1954 | Dr. Hugh J. Morgan, Professor of Medicine, Vanderbilt University |
| 1955 | The Rev. George A. Buttrick, Professor of Christian Morals, Harvard Univ. |
| 1956 | The Rev. Douglas Horton, Professor of Theology, Harvard University |
| 1957 | Dr. Erich Fromm, Professor of Psychoanalysis, National University of Mexico |
| 1958 | The Honorable Felix Frankfurter, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court |
| 1959 | Dr. James Howard Means, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard University |
| 1960 | Dr. Margaret Mead, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University |
| 1961 | Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche, Under Secretary for Special Political Affairs, U.N. |
| 1962 | Mr. Erik Erikson, Prof. of Human Development, Lecturer Psych., Harvard Univ. |
| 1963 | Dr. Herman Ludwig Blumgart, Prof. of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard University |
| 1965 | Dr. Paul Freund, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard University |
| 1970 | Dr. I Bernard Cohen, Professor of The History of Science, Harvard University |
| 1973 | Dr. Elizabeth Kübler Ross, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Univ. of Chicago |
| 1976 | Dr. Robert J. Lifton, Foundations Fund of Research, Yale University |
| 1977 | Dr. Franz J. Ingelfinger, Editor, New England Journal of Medicine |
| 1978 | Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harvard Univ. |
| 1979 | Dr. Carleton B. Chapman, President, The Commonwealth Fund |
| 1980 | Dr. Edward O. Wilson, Professor of Science, Harvard University |
| 1981 | Arnold S. Relman, M.D., Prof. of Medicine, HMS; Editor, NEJM |
| 1982 | The Rev. Robert F. Drinan, SJ, U.S. Congress; Georgetown Univ. Law Ctr. |
| 1983 | Joshua Lederberg, Ph.D., President, The Rockefeller University |
| 1984 | Uwe E. Reinhardt, Ph.D., Prof. Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton Univ. |
| 1985 | Dr. Julian Tudor Hart, Glyncorrwg Health Center, West Galmorgan, Wales |
| 1986 | Baroness Mary Warnock, Mistress, Girton College, Cambridge, England |
| 1987 | Dennis Thompson, Ph.D., Dir. Pgm. in Ethics and Professions, Harvard Univ. |
| 1988 | Albert Jonsen, Ph.D., Chair, Medical History and Ethics, Univ. of Washington |
| 1991 | Arnold S. Relman, M.D., Prof. of Medicine, HMS; Editor, NEJM |
| 1992 | Larry R. Churchill, Chair, Social Medicine, Univ. N. Carolina School of Med. |
| 1993 | Bernadine Healy, M.D., Director, National Institutes of Health |
| 1994 | Robert Lawrence, M.D., Director, Health Sciences, Rockefeller Foundation |
| 1995 | Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ph.D. Chair, Afro-American Studies Dept., Harvard Univ. |
| 1996 | Sissela Bok, Ph.D., Fellow, Harvard Center for Population and Development |
| 1997 | Daniel Callahan, Ph.D., Founder, The Hastings Center |
| 1998 | Daniel D. Federman, M.D., Dean for Medical Education, Harvard Medical School |
| 1998 | Elie Wiesel, Mellon Professor of The Humanities, Boston University |
| 1999 | Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President, The Children’s Defense Fund |
| 2001 | Dame Cicely Saunders, St. Christopher’s Hospice, London |
| 2002 | Rashi Fein, Ph.D., Professor of The Economics of Medicine, Emeritus, HMS |
| 2004 | Howard Gardner, Ph.D., Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education |
| 2005 | Jerome P. Kassirer, M.D., Editor-in-Chief, Emeritus, New England Journal of Medicine |
| 2006 | Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Founder, Partners in Health |