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COLLECTION Identifier: H MS c327

Rashi Fein papers

Overview

The Rashi Fein papers, 1944-2012 (inclusive), 1953-2000 (bulk), are the product of Fein’s professional, research, and publishing activities throughout the course of his career. The papers are arranged in seven series: I. Alphabetical Files (1950-2010, undated); II. Writings and Publications (1951-2012, undated); III. Correspondence (1949-2012); IV. Student Files (1944-1980, undated); V. Audiovisual Recordings (1970-1999); VI. Appointment Calendars (1961-2001); and VII. Collected Publications (1965-2007).

Dates

  • Creation: 1944-2012 (inclusive),
  • Creation: Majority of material found within 1953-2000 .

Creator

Language of Materials

Papers are predominantly in English. Some correspondence and reprints are in French and Japanese.

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research. Access requires advance notice. Access to Harvard University records is restricted for 50 years from the date of creation. These restrictions are noted where they appear in Series I and III. Access to personal and student information is restricted for 80 years from the date of creation. These restrictions are noted where they appear in Series I, III, and IV. Researchers may apply for access to restricted records. Consult Public Services for further information.

The Papers are stored offsite. Researchers are advised to consult Public Services for further information concerning retrieval of material.

Conditions Governing Use

The Harvard Medical Library does not hold copyright on all materials in the collection. Researchers are responsible for identifying and contacting any third-party copyright holders for permission to reproduce or publish. For more information on the Center's use, publication, and reproduction policies, view our Reproductions and Use Policy.

Extent

12.26 cubic feet (12 records center cartons, 1 legal size document box, and 1 half legal size document box)

The Rashi Fein papers, 1944-2012 (inclusive), 1953-2000 (bulk), are the product of Fein’s professional, research, and publishing activities throughout the course of his career. The papers are arranged in seven series: I. Alphabetical Files (1950-2010, undated); II. Writings and Publications (1951-2012, undated); III. Correspondence (1949-2012); IV. Student Files (1944-1980, undated); V. Audiovisual Recordings (1970-1999); VI. Appointment Calendars (1961-2001); and VII. Collected Publications (1965-2007).

Alphabetical Files (Series I) constitute the bulk of the collection, and consist of: committee records of numerous boards and committees related to healthcare policy and medical education, including the Committee for National Health Insurance, the American Academy of Pediatrics Center for Child Health Research Board of Directors, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program’s National Advisory Committee; typed lectures, conference programs, and related correspondence for Fein’s public speaking engagements and participation in professional conferences and meetings; and administrative and teaching records of the University of North Carolina, President John F. Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisors, the Brookings Institution, and the Harvard Medical School Department of Social Medicine and Health Policy (previously the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine). Alphabetical files also include: manuscript drafts, reprints, and publication correspondence for writings and publications; and professional correspondence. Subjects include various areas in healthcare and economics, including: healthcare costs and financing; national health insurance; medical manpower; healthcare regionalization; healthcare access and equity; and relative incomes and social statuses of African Americans.

Writings and Publications (Series II) include manuscript drafts, reprints, journal clippings, typed lectures, and related publication correspondence for Fein’s published articles, books, and unpublished writings and lectures. Correspondence (Series III) contains letters related to: public speaking activities and participation in various professional conferences; service on professional boards and committees; and policy ideas related to Fein’s research, activities, publications, and current events concerning various areas of healthcare reform, policy, and economics. Writings, publications, and correspondence frequently concern: healthcare reform; medical costs, pricing, and financing; access to healthcare; regionalization of health services; national health insurance; Medicare and Medicaid; medical manpower supply and distribution; medical education; and other topics in health policy and economics. Subject areas also include African American income distribution, Israeli political affairs, and wars in the Middle East. Student Files (Series IV) consist of: class notes and coursework for undergraduate and graduate courses related to economic methods and theory, income, pricing, labor, political economy, and other areas of economics; surveys, interviews, statistical maps and tables, and related correspondence generated as a product of Fein’s research for his doctoral dissertation and a related follow-up study; and a bound copy of his dissertation, “Factors Influencing the Location of North Carolina General Medical Practitioners: A Study in Physician Distribution.” Papers also contain: VHS and DVD recordings of Fein’s Harvard Medical School retirement event held May 6, 1999 and titled, “A Celebration of Professor Rashi Fein” (Series V); two DVD copies of a television program on health care in which Fein participated, titled, “CBS Reports: Health in America: Don’t Get Sick in America,” broadcast by CBS Broadcasting, Inc. in 1970 (Series V); yearly appointment calendars maintained by Fein and his assistant between 1961 and 2001 (Series VI); and collected publications related to healthcare costs and financing, national health insurance, healthcare reform, and equity and access in health services (Series VII).

Papers are predominantly in English. Some correspondence and reprints are in French and Japanese.

The papers contain a number of access restriction types to protect personal and institutional privacy. These types include: 80-year restrictions from the date of record creation for personnel records, student records, density of personally-identifying information, and surveys and interviews with North Carolina physicians collected as research data for Fein’s doctoral dissertation; and 50-year restrictions from the date of record creation for Harvard University institutional records.

Biographical Note

Rashi Fein (1926-2014), B.A., 1948, Ph.D., 1956, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, M.A., 1976, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Hon. Litt.D., 1996, State University of New York, Albany, was Professor of the Economics of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. Fein was a medical economist with a focus on issues related to health policy and healthcare reform, including healthcare costs and financing, medical manpower supply and distribution, healthcare access and equity, regionalization of health services, Medicare and Medicaid, and medical education. He worked throughout his career to advocate for a national health insurance program in the United States, and for the improvement of healthcare access and management.

Rashi Fein was born in New York City in 1926 to Historian Isaac M. Fein (1899-1988) and Teacher Clara Wertheim Fein (1898-1976). He received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1948 and 1956, respectively. His doctoral dissertation was titled, “Factors Influencing the Location of North Carolina General Medical Practitioners: A Study in Physician Distribution.” After completing his graduate coursework, he served as a staff member of President Truman’s Commission on Health Needs of the Nation (1952), before moving to the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, where he held the positions of Lecturer in Economics (1952-1956), Assistant Professor of Economics (1956-1958), and Associate Professor of Economics (1958-1961). During this period, he also served as Project Director for the Economics of Mental Illness at the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1957-1958), and as Statistician for the United States Bureau of the Census, Suitland, Maryland (1958-1959). In 1961, he was appointed Senior Staff Member of President John F. Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisors in Washington, D.C., where he served through 1963. Remaining in Washington, he then joined the Brookings Institution as Senior Fellow of the Economics Study Program (1963-1968), working on issues related to education, racial discrimination, healthcare, and other areas of public policy. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1968, where he was appointed Professor of the Economics of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He remained at Harvard until his retirement in 1999, when he was granted the title, Professor of the Economics of Medicine, Emeritus.

Fein worked throughout his career to advocate for national health insurance, universal access to healthcare, and improved health services management. His work focused on issues related to health policy and healthcare reform, including medical costs and financing, medical manpower supply and distribution, healthcare access and equity, regionalization of health services, Medicare and Medicaid, and medical education. He also worked on the issues of racial discrimination, human resources, education patterns, income distribution, and other areas of economics and public policy. His numerous awards and honors include: the Adam Yarmolinsky Medal of the Institute of Medicine (2000); the Lifetime Achievement Award of Health Care for All (2000); the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association (1999); the Martin E. Rehfuss Medal of Jefferson Medical College (1973); and the John M. Russell Medal of the Markle Scholars (1971). He was a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, a Charter Member of the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, and Chairman Emeritus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program’s National Advisory Committee. His many professional affiliations also included the Committee for National Health Insurance, the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Pediatrics’s Center for Child Health Research, and the Milbank Memorial Fund Technical Board.

Fein was awarded a travelling fellowship from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1971 to study the national health services in England, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and in 1974 served as a WHO consultant to the University of the Negev, Israel, on its program in health services delivery and education. He consulted for state and national government departments on healthcare reform and universal healthcare, and served on several national task forces and committees related to health policy, social security, medical research funding, and occupation training. He also served on the directing boards of Beth Israel Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Harvard Community Health Plan Foundation, and the Hebrew Rehabilitation Home for the Aged. He authored over 100 articles related to health policy and economics, as well as nine books, including: Medical Care: Medical Costs: The Search for a Health Insurance Policy (1986, 1989); The Health Care Mess: How We Got Into It and What it Will Take to Get Us Out (2005), with Julius B. Richmond; and Learning Lessons: Medicine, Economics, and Public Policy (2010).

Rashi Fein married Ruth Judith Breslau in 1949. They had three children: Alan (born 1952), Michael (born 1955), and Karen. His daughter, Bena Fein (1961-1995), died of complications from a bone marrow transplant. Rashi Fein died of melanoma on 7 September 2014 in Boston, Mass.

Series and Subseries in the Collection

  1. I. Alphabetical Files, 1950-2010, undated
  2. II. Writings and Publications, 1951-2012, undated
  3. ___ A. Numbered Publications, 1951-2000, undated
  4. ___ B. Numbered Unpublished Writings, 1963-1994, undated
  5. ___ C. Unnumbered Writings and Publications, 1951-2012, undated
  6. III. Correspondence, 1949-2012
  7. IV. Student Files, 1944-1980, undated
  8. ___ A. Undergraduate and Graduate Class Notes and Coursework, 1944-1956, undated
  9. ___ B.Doctoral Dissertation, 1947-1980, undated
  10. V. Audiovisual Recordings, 1970-1999
  11. VI. Appointment Calendars, 1961-2001
  12. VII. Collected Publications, 1965-2007

Immediate Source of Acquisition

  1. Accession number 2013-108. The papers were gifted to the Center by Rashi Fein. 2013 May 16.

Related Collections in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Center for the History of Medicine

  1. Papers of Leon Eisenberg. H MS c196.
  2. Papers of Arnold S. Relman. H MS c353.
  3. Records of the Harvard Medical School Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. M-SD04.

Related Papers at the National Library of Medicine

  1. Papers of Julius B. Richmond. MS C 383.

Processing Information

Processed by Amber LaFountain, 2014 June.

Processing staff in the Center for the History of Medicine analyzed, arranged, and described the papers, and created a finding aid to improve access. Items were rehoused and, where necessary, photocopied to acid-free paper. Folder titles were transcribed from the originals when available; titles supplied by the processing staff appear in brackets only on the physical folders. Duplicate reprints already in the collection were discarded.

Due to a large number of abbreviations in folder titles, only occasionally used abbreviations and acronyms are written out at the folder level. Frequently used abbreviations that were not clarified at the folder level include: AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) and CCHR (American Academy of Pediatrics Center for Child Health Research); CEA (President John F. Kennedy's Council f Economic Advisors); HEW (United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare); HMS (Harvard Medical School); JHU (Johns Hopkins University); NC (North Carolina); NHI (National Health Insurance) and CNHI (Committee for National Health Insurance); NY (New York); and RWJ or RWJF (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation).

Subject

Creator

Title
Fein, Rashi. Papers, 1944-2012 (inclusive), 1953-2000 (bulk): Finding Aid.
Author
Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine. Center for the History of Medicine.
Language of description
und
EAD ID
med00206

Repository Details

Part of the Center for the History of Medicine (Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine) Repository

The Center for the History of Medicine in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine is one of the world's leading resources for the study of the history of health and medicine. Our mission is to enable the history of medicine and public health to inform healthcare, the health sciences, and the societies in which they are embedded.

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