Thanks to a generous gift by the late philanthropist Gisela Eisenreich, the Department for the History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine at the Medical Faculty of Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, is able to offer the Gisela Eisenreich Fellowship in History and Philosophy of Nature, the Art of Healing and Medicine.
The Gisela Eisenreich Fellowship is granted initially for two years. Fellows are given liberty to devote their full attention to research on a topic relating to the history or philosophy (including philosophy of science or ethics) of the interconnection and interplay of nature, the art of healing and medicine. The fellowship can be extended for a third year if the fellow completes and submits a substantial external grant application before the end of the second year and plans to hold the grant at the department. Applications must include a sketch of the research project envisioned.
Examples of suitable topics include:
- Medicine between “art” and “science”
- The Human body between nature and nurture
- Philosophy of science and (bio)medicine
- The epistemology of biomedicine (and how it relates to ideas of nature)
- Medicine and the senses
- Environmental History and medicine
- Nature as a target for public health action
Fellows are expected to actively participate in department life and present their research publicly during the second year of the fellowship.
The Department for the History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine has five focus areas of research:
- Networks and reputation systems in the history of the life sciences
- Technology and culture in medicine and society
- History and philosophy of the neurosciences and psychiatry
- History of medical associations and institutions
- Children and health in history
Applicants must hold a PhD or MD or equivalent degree at the start of the fellowship. They also must have an excellent command of English or German and promise to produce internationally recognized research in an area described above.