[Originally published in Synapse on December 2, 1993.] David E. Smith, MD, founder and director of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics, began treating young people using LSD in 1967 and has been on the front lines of drug treatment ever since.

[Originally published in Synapse on November 21, 1996.] Before 1973, the year Roe vs. Wade guaranteed women the right to safe, therapeutic abortion in the U.S., David Grimes, MD, recalled visiting the septic unit of a Los Angeles hospital. Women seriously ill from botched illegal abortions lay in the twenty beds of the common ward. The ward was always filled to capacity.

[Originally published in Synapse on November 6, 2003.] What comes to your mind when you hear the words “forensic medicine?” Murder, dismantled body parts, or DNA analysis? Whatever it is, one probably does not equate forensic medicine with two hours of amusing stories and laughter. But that was exactly what happened at Dr. Henry C. Lee’s talk, Forensic Evidence Found on Human Bodies — National and International Cases

[Originally published in Synapse on October 19, 2006.] What does the term “race” mean? Is it a social construct or is it genetic? How should the issue of race be addressed in the patient encounter? The purpose of Dr. Sandra Moody-Ayers lecture was not to answer the questions but rather to show that race is a fluid concept that has changed over time.

[Originally published in Synapse on October 10, 1991.] UC Berkeley Professor Neil Gilbert’s article, “The Phantom Epidemic of Sexual Assault,” which appeared in the Spring 1991 issue of a journal called The Public Interest, claimed that the media and “radical feminists” exaggerate the extent to which rape occurs in America.