Helene Scott-Fordsmand

Helene Scott-Fordsmand is an affiliated researcher at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and a research fellow at Clare Hall. She works on questions related to enquiry and reasoning in clinical practice, and is currently writing about the role of medical classification and the contrast between idealised categories and ‘messy’ human bodies.

Dr Scott-Fordsmand works as a philosopher driven by an interest in unruly moments of medical inquiry and focusing in particularly on case studies from anatomical and orthopaedic contexts. She draws on methods from anthropology and science and technology studies, and she has collaborated with clinicians and artists on research, creative writing, and exhibition projects.

She earned her PhD from University of Copenhagen. Her doctoral research was carried out at Medical Museion – a university museum for medical history, culture, and research – and focused on the epistemic role of aversive emotions in clinical enquiry. She has published on medical humanities, emotions in medical practice, practice-based reasoning in clinical medicine, Julia Kristeva, and Mary Hesse. From 2017-2019 she served as the chairwoman of the Danish Network for Women in Philosophy (now: Network for women and non-binaries in Philosophy).