My interest in medical humanities extends back to the beginnings of my professional life and career and includes teaching, research, and academic administration in higher education. As a theological student in college and seminary and later as a professional in American social, intellectual, economic, and political history, my interests have always focused on cultural, institutional, and other structural features influencing individual and group development and human relations in this country. That has, of course, been broadened by international studies and work experiences over the forty-year span of my career.

Beginning with my retirement as President emeritus and Professor of History from West Virginia University Institute of Technology in 1999, I have remained professionally active as a consultant to university administrators, a foreign policy institute, non-governmental organizations and charitable foundations, and worked on their behalf in Nepal, China, Romania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mexico, and Guatemala.

For the past six years, I have been engaged as a volunteer and scholar in international orphan care and prison ministry and teaching in Texas. I have special research interests in biomedical ethics in principle and practice involving correctional medicine in Texas prisons over the past three decades. Specifically, I am interested in developing new perspectives on the consequences to the health of both the general public and the persons caught in the mass incarceration of individuals as a solution to the social problems of this era. The programs on law and ethics in correctional health at UTMB's Institute for Medical Humanities provides an excellent professional environment for the collegial discourse and study on these primary topics in connection with the Texas prison system. It is a richly rewarding field of study for one with my research background and interests.