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Harriet Hall
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Harriet Hall
Harriet A. Hall (July 2, 1945 – January 11, 2023) was an American family physician, U.S. Air Force flight surgeon, author, science communicator, and skeptic. She wrote about alternative medicine and quackery for the magazines Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer and was a regular contributor and founding editor of Science-Based Medicine. She wrote under her own name or used the pseudonym "The SkepDoc". After retiring as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Hall was a frequent speaker at science and skepticism related conventions in the US and around the world.
Harriet Anne Hoag was born on July 2, 1945, in St. Louis, Missouri. The oldest of four siblings, she was raised in the View Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. While in her teens, she began to question her Methodist upbringing, later becoming an atheist.
Hoag attended the University of Washington, where she was awarded a baccalaureate degree in Spanish language and literature. She went on to the University of Washington School of Medicine to earn a Doctor of Medicine in 1970.
In 1971, Hoag did an internship at David Grant USAF Medical Center in California. She was then stationed in Spain for seven years as a general medical officer.
Hoag pursued aerospace medicine to become a flight surgeon, graduating in 1979 and becoming certified in family medicine. She began her assignment at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, where she met and married Kirk Albert Hall, Jr. She was the second woman to complete her medical internship in the Air Force and was the first female graduate of the Air Force family medicine residency at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
Hall served in the U.S. Air Force for 20 years. She retired as a full colonel from Joint Base Lewis–McChord in Washington state.
Hall said she had been a "passive skeptic" for quite some time, only reading the literature and attending the various meetings. In 2002, she met Wallace Sampson at the Skeptic's Toolbox workshop in Eugene, Oregon. Sampson encouraged Hall to write an article for the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine testing so-called "Vitamin O" products she had seen advertised in the mail. She then began writing articles for Skeptical Inquirer. Hall spoke with Michael Shermer at The Amazing Meeting in 2005 about the book The God Code and he asked her write a review of it for Skeptic magazine. From 2006–2023 she had a regular column in Skeptic magazine titled The SkepDoc, which was also used as the name of her website. Before the Toolbox, "I had not done any writing... one thing led to another and now I'm on the faculty of the Skeptic's Toolbox."
In 2008 she published Women Aren't Supposed to Fly: The Memoirs of a Female Flight Surgeon, an autobiography focusing on her experiences as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force (she retired as a full colonel). As a female physician, air force officer, pilot and flight surgeon, she was a minority in several respects, and encountered prejudice. The title of the book refers to an incident after her first solo flight when an airport official told her, "Didn't anybody ever tell you women aren't supposed to fly?"
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Harriet Hall
Harriet A. Hall (July 2, 1945 – January 11, 2023) was an American family physician, U.S. Air Force flight surgeon, author, science communicator, and skeptic. She wrote about alternative medicine and quackery for the magazines Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer and was a regular contributor and founding editor of Science-Based Medicine. She wrote under her own name or used the pseudonym "The SkepDoc". After retiring as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Hall was a frequent speaker at science and skepticism related conventions in the US and around the world.
Harriet Anne Hoag was born on July 2, 1945, in St. Louis, Missouri. The oldest of four siblings, she was raised in the View Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. While in her teens, she began to question her Methodist upbringing, later becoming an atheist.
Hoag attended the University of Washington, where she was awarded a baccalaureate degree in Spanish language and literature. She went on to the University of Washington School of Medicine to earn a Doctor of Medicine in 1970.
In 1971, Hoag did an internship at David Grant USAF Medical Center in California. She was then stationed in Spain for seven years as a general medical officer.
Hoag pursued aerospace medicine to become a flight surgeon, graduating in 1979 and becoming certified in family medicine. She began her assignment at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, where she met and married Kirk Albert Hall, Jr. She was the second woman to complete her medical internship in the Air Force and was the first female graduate of the Air Force family medicine residency at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
Hall served in the U.S. Air Force for 20 years. She retired as a full colonel from Joint Base Lewis–McChord in Washington state.
Hall said she had been a "passive skeptic" for quite some time, only reading the literature and attending the various meetings. In 2002, she met Wallace Sampson at the Skeptic's Toolbox workshop in Eugene, Oregon. Sampson encouraged Hall to write an article for the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine testing so-called "Vitamin O" products she had seen advertised in the mail. She then began writing articles for Skeptical Inquirer. Hall spoke with Michael Shermer at The Amazing Meeting in 2005 about the book The God Code and he asked her write a review of it for Skeptic magazine. From 2006–2023 she had a regular column in Skeptic magazine titled The SkepDoc, which was also used as the name of her website. Before the Toolbox, "I had not done any writing... one thing led to another and now I'm on the faculty of the Skeptic's Toolbox."
In 2008 she published Women Aren't Supposed to Fly: The Memoirs of a Female Flight Surgeon, an autobiography focusing on her experiences as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force (she retired as a full colonel). As a female physician, air force officer, pilot and flight surgeon, she was a minority in several respects, and encountered prejudice. The title of the book refers to an incident after her first solo flight when an airport official told her, "Didn't anybody ever tell you women aren't supposed to fly?"
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