Please join us for our next History of Medicine Society Lecture featuring presenter Rafael Jimenez, M.D., M.H.A. 

In 1813, Abigail “Nabby” Adams, the daughter of the second president of the United States, John Adams (1797–1801), passed away from metastatic breast cancer. Her ordeal began in 1810, at age 44, when she discovered a lump in her right breast. She consulted with Dr Benjamin Rush, one of the most prominent physicians of the time and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, which resulted in a recommendation for an immediate mastectomy. The surgery was performed at her parent’s home in Quincy, Massachusetts, by Dr John Warren. The crude and painful nature of the surgical procedure was highly traumatic to Ms. Adams and her family. After a few months, she returned to her home in rural New York. Within a few months she began feeling generalized pain. When it was evident that her symptoms were the result of disseminated breast cancer, she returned to her parents’ house, where she died on August 15, a mere 22 months after her surgery. Ms. Adams’ suffering through the stark treatment was the result of a unique historical period, when the medical community had just recently dismissed Galen’s paradigms, but still lacked a basic knowledge of the disease’s nature or the ability to administer painless, safe surgical treatment.

Dr. Jimenez is a board-certified anatomic pathologist at Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, MN. He completed his anatomic pathology residency and a surgical pathology fellowship at Wayne State University, in Detroit, Michigan.  From there he moved to Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he completed a fellowship in urologic pathology.  He has 24 years of experience in diagnostic surgical pathology. His areas of interest include genitourinary pathology, breast pathology, and general surgical pathology. He has been at Mayo Clinic since 2008 and is currently the Vice-chair of Practice of the Division of Anatomic Pathology, the director of the Genitourinary Pathology fellowship, and participates in the frozen section practice, the genitourinary pathology section, and the breast pathology section.  He is a member of the History of Pathology Working Group of the European Society of Pathology and the American Osler Society and has been a lecturer several times at the Mayo Clinic History of Medicine Society.   

Questions? Please contact Emily Brown at brown.emily@mayo.edu or 507-284-3676.

Please click the link below to join the webinar for online attendance:  

https://mc-meet.zoom.us/j/92822226645?pwd=OTVt M2lUOHlTT1VSaUtuZ2NNRGJwdz09
Passcode: 650410 
Webinar ID: 928 2222 6645