Interfaculty Centre for Bioethics and Medical Humanities Interfaculty Centre for Bioethics and Medical Humanities

Alexander Wenger was trained in literature and history of medicine. He is Professor for Medical Humanities at the Faculty of Medicine, member of the Clinical Ethics Council of the University Hospitals of Geneva and Director of the Interfaculty Centre for Bioethics and Medical Humanities . He is co-PI for the SNSF project An interdisciplinary model to explain neverending infectious diseases. The case of syphilis, from 1859 to the present (2020-2024).

He coordinates the CineMed website which brings together educational, research and public dissemination initiatives focusing on the links between cinema and medicine. He is also a member of the steering group of the Salon Planète Santé Live, in charge of Planète Ciné events.

After studying literature and obtaining a post-graduate degree in the social and cultural history of medicine, Alexandre Wenger has carried out various research stays, notably at the ENS Paris and at the Institut für Geschichte der Medizin der Robert-Bosch Stiftung in Stuttgart (Germany). In 2005, he defended a doctoral thesis at the University of Geneva on the pathogenic effects attributed to reading by 18th century physicians.

From 2011 to 2017 he was a full professor at the University of Fribourg, in charge of the creation and running of the interdisciplinary research and teaching programme "Medicine and Society". He set up the first Swiss writing prize for medical students and directed the SNSF project The Image of the poet-physician (20th-21st C.): remapping knowledge.

RESEARCH

• literature and medicine, from the 18th century to the present day
• forms and functions of medical writing (treatises, medical cases, scientific poetry, etc.)
• figures of physicians in fiction (literature, cinema, TV series)
• cultural history of syphilis
• narrative ethics

Head of the research group « Medical Humanities ».

TEACHING

Alexandre Wenger is a member of the steering committee of the Faculty of Medicine's elective courses, in charge of the coordination of Medical Humanities' teachings. He directs Masters of Medicine in the field of "literature, cinema and medicine". He was a member of the federal working group for the development of PROFILES (Principal Relevant Objectives and Framework for Integrative Learning and Education in Switzerland).