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Eric
Boyle is a Stetten Fellow in the Office
of NIH History for 2008-2009.
Eric
W. Boyle earned his Ph.D. in the History
of Science, Technology and Medicine from
the University of California Santa Barbara
in 2007. His dissertation, “The Boundaries
of Medicine: Redefining Therapeutic Orthodoxy
in an Age of Reform,” analyzed and contextualized
what became “normative” in the early twentieth
century American medical marketplace by
examining the shifting boundaries between
orthodox and unorthodox therapies. Using
the methodological framework of boundary
formation, his dissertation interpreted
effective and ineffective ways of acquiring,
formulating, and providing reliable medical
knowledge, while examining how and where
cultural credibility has been determined.
In particular, each chapter illustrated
how different stakeholders or interest groups—including
regulators, advertisers, consumers, professionals,
educators, philanthropists, and scientists—have
been involved in altering the parameters of and definitions for
therapeutic legitimacy, acceptability, and
legality.
From
2007-2008 Dr. Boyle worked as Visiting Assistant
Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
where he taught courses in the history of
alternative medicine, medical technology,
and health care in the United States . As
Dewitt Stetten Memorial Fellow he is working
on a project that contextualizes the political,
economic, philosophical, scientific, and professional
factors involved in the creation and operation
of the Office of Alternative Medicine and
the National Center for Complementary and
Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes
of Health. His project is designed to investigate
how the NIH has obtained, evaluated, and disseminated
medical knowledge about complementary and
alternative healing practices given its commitment
to rigorous scientific investigation |
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