Marco Ramos, Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine and Department of Psychiatry, joined Dan HoSang, Associate Professor of Ethnicity Race & Migration and of American Studies, on an episode of Connecticut Public Radio’s Where We Live, discussing the history of eugenics and how it is directly tied to the history of Yale University.
The episode also addressed how Yale psychiatry programs and public schools in New Haven are building curriculum around the research on eugenics and its lasting impact. Dr. Ramos underscores the legacy of “New Haven as a laboratory”, something he asks new psychiatry residents to consider. “Our pedagogy increasingly is asking trainees-to-be to become critical of that relationship, and say, ‘To what extent is my research advancing my interest versus the community that I’m supposed to be serving? This history sets up a framework where they can make sense of that and process it emotionally, and they can figure out what they can do to… build trust with the communities they’re working with. But that’s impossible, I think, unless it’s contextualized in this longer history that really starts with eugenics.”