Jeremy Greene, M.D., Ph.D., M.A.

Headshot of Jeremy Greene
  • William H. Welch Professor of Medicine and the History of Medicine
  • Professor of History of Medicine
Male

Languages: English, Spanish

Research Interests

History of disease; Global health; Pharmaceuticals; Therapeutics; Twentieth century clinical medicine ...read more

Locations

The Johns Hopkins Hospital (Main Entrance)

1800 Orleans St.
Sheikh Zayed Tower
Baltimore, MD 21287
Phone: 410-955-9434
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (Main Entrance) - Google Maps

Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center (now called Levi Watkins, Jr., M.D., Outpatient Center)

Background

Dr. Jeremy Greene is the William H. Welch Professor of Medicine and the History of Medicine, and Director of the Department of the History of Medicine and the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine.  He serves as Core Faculty in the Johns Hopkins Drug Access and Affordability Initiative, Associate Faculty at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, and holds joint appointments in the Department of History of Science and Technology and the Department of Anthropology at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. 

His first two books, Prescribing by Numbers: Drugs and the Definition of Disease and Generic: The Unbranding of Modern Medicine, (2007 and 2014, Johns Hopkins University Press) describe how the relationship of knowledge and practice, medical science and the pharmaceutical marketplace, and broader understandings of the relationship between medicine and public health can only be understood through understanding the complex histories of medical technologies (like pharmaceuticals) and the series of legislative, regulatory, clinical, and consumer decisions that guide their production, circulation, and consumption. His current book project, tentatively titled The Electronic Patient: Medicine and the Challenge of New Media (forthcoming, University of Chicago Press)  examines how changing expectations of instantaneous communications through electric, electronic, and digital media transformed the nature of medical practice and medical knowledge, and is supported by a  Faculty Scholars Fellowship from the Greenwall Foundation and a G13 Award from the National Library of Medicine.

Dr. Greene received an MA in medical anthropology from Harvard in 2004, the MD and PhD degrees in the history of science from Harvard in 2005, completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in 2008, and is a member of the American College of Physicians. In addition to his appointment at the Institute for the History of Medicine, Greene also practices internal medicine at the East Baltimore Medical Center, a community health center affiliated with Johns Hopkins.  His work has been recognized by the Roy Porter Award from the Society for Social History of Medicine, the J. Worth Estes Award and the Richard Shryock Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine, the Edward Kremers Award from the American Institute for the History of Pharmacy, the Rachel Carson Prize from the Society for the Social Studies of Science, and most recently Dr. Greene was named the 2021 Nicholas Davies Award recipient from the American College of Physicians for “outstanding scholarly activities in history, literature, philosophy, and ethics and contributions to humanism in medicine.”

...read more

Titles

  • William H. Welch Professor of Medicine and the History of Medicine
  • Director, Department of the History of Medicine
  • Director, Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine
  • Professor of History of Medicine
  • Professor of Medicine

Departments / Divisions

Education

Degrees

  • MD PhD; Harvard Medical School (2005)

Residencies

  • Internal Medicine; Brigham and Women's Hospital (2008)

Board Certifications

  • American Board of Internal Medicine (Internal Medicine) (2008)

Research & Publications

Research Summary

I am broadly interested in the history of disease, and my research explores the ways in which medical technologies come to influence our understandings of what it means to be sick or healthy, normal or abnormal.  In addition to directing the Institute of the History of Medicine, I am the founding Director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, Core Faculty in the Johns Hopkins Drug Access and Affordability Initiative, Associate Faculty at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, and hold joint appointments in the Department of History of Science and Technology and the Department of Anthropology at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. 

My first two books, Prescribing by Numbers: Drugs and the Definition of Disease and Generic: The Unbranding of Modern Medicine, (2007 and 2014, Johns Hopkins University Press) describe how the relationship of knowledge and practice, medical science and the pharmaceutical marketplace, and broader understandings of the relationship between medicine and public health can only be understood through understanding the complex histories of medical technologies (like pharmaceuticals) and the series of legislative, regulatory, clinical, and consumer decisions that guide their production, circulation, and consumption. My current book project, tentatively titled The Electronic Patient: Medicine and the Challenge of New Media (forthcoming, University of Chicago Press)  examines how changing expectations of instantaneous communications through electric, electronic, and digital media transformed the nature of medical practice and medical knowledge.  This research is focused on recapturing how seemingly mundane communications technologies have enabled and altered the production, circulation, and consumption of medical knowledge, from telegraph to text pager, telephone to telemedicine, fax machine to Facebook.  The present work has been supported by a  Faculty Scholars Fellowship from the Greenwall Foundation and a G13 Award from the National Library of Medicine.

Lab

Lab Website: Jeremy Greene Lab

Selected Publications

View all on PubMed

Kveim Lie AH, Greene JA. From Ariadne’s thread to the labyrinth itself: Nosology and the infrastructure of modern medicine. N Engl J Med 2020; 382 (13), 1273-1277

Greene JA, Lea AS. Digital futures past: The long arc of big data in medicine. N Engl J Med 2020; 381(5): 480-485

Greene JA. Do-it-yourself medical devices: Technology and empowerment in American health care. N Engl J Med 2016; 374: 305-9

Jones DS, Greene JA, Duffin J, Harley Warner J.  Making the case for history in medical education. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences; 70(1):2015

Greene JA, Riggs K.  Why is there no generic insulin? Historical origins of a modern problem. NEJM 2015; 372:1171-5

Academic Affiliations & Courses

Courses and Syllabi

  • History of Twentieth Century Biomedicine (SOM150.714)
  • Survey of Modern Medicine (150.702)

Activities & Honors

Honors

  • Rachel Carson Prize, Society for the Social Studies of Science, 2009
  • Nicholas Davies Memorial Award, American College of Physicians

Professional Activities

  • Press Faculty Editorial Board, Johns Hopkins University
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