Joel Howell, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Howell has written widely on the use of medical technology, examining the appropriateness of its use, the social and contextual factors relevant to its clinical application and diffusion, and analyzing why American medicine has become obsessed with its use. His research attempts to analyze the implication for health policy of factors that have both contributed to and slowed the diffusion of medical technology into clinical practice, using both a sociology of knowledge and a comparative approach. He was the Senior Associate Director of the University of Michigan Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program (the forerunner of the current National Clinician Scholars Program) and Director of the University of Michigan Program in Society and Medicine. He is also co-founder and director of the Medical Arts Program, a program funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to use the arts to help medical students and residents become better physicians.

• M.D., University of Chicago
• Ph.D., History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
• B.S., Michigan State University