About

Lynn M. Thomas is a Professor and the Giovanni and Amne Costigan Endowed Professor in History at the University of Washington. She serves as the Director of the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities. Her research focuses on areas within history, and she is involved in academic leadership within the department. Further details about her specific research interests, background, and key contributions are not provided on the page.

Research topics

• Gender studies
• Sociology
• Political science
• Medicine
• History

Selected publications

• Traveling Histories of Abortion

  The American Historical Review · 2026-01-10

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Strange Bedfellows

  The American Historical Review · 2026-01-10

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Managing the Sudden Critical Shortage of Intravenous Fluids

  NEJM Catalyst · 2025-04-16

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Development of a Centralised National AED (Automated External Defibrillator) Network Across All Ambulance Services in the United Kingdom

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Development of a centralised national AED (automated external defibrillator) network across all ambulance services in the United Kingdom

  Resuscitation Plus · 2024-08-23 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access

  Background: Early cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation is key to increasing survival following an out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest (OHCA). However, automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are used in a very small percentage of cases. Despite large numbers of AEDs in the community, the absence of a unified system for registering their locations across the UK's ambulance services may have resulted in missed opportunities to save lives. Therefore, representatives from the resuscitation community worked alongside ambulance services to develop a single repository for data on the location of AEDs in the UK. Methods: A national defibrillator network, "The Circuit", was developed by the British Heart Foundation in collaboration with the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, the UK ambulance services, the Resuscitation Council UK and St John Ambulance. The database allows individuals or organisations to record information about AED location, accessibility, and availability. The database synchronises with ambulance computer aided dispatch systems to provide UK ambulance services with real-time information on the nearest, available AED. Results: The Circuit was successfully rolled out to all 14 UK ambulance services. Since 2019, 82,108 AEDs have been registered. Of the AED data collected by The Circuit, 54% were not previously registered to any ambulance service, and are therefore new registrations. Conclusion: The Circuit provides ambulance services with a single point of access to AED locations in the UK. Since the launch of the system the number of defibrillators registered has doubled. Linking the Circuit data with patient outcome data will help understand whether improving the accessibility to AEDs is associated with increased survival.

  PublisherDOI

• Resuscitation on the field of play: a best-practice guideline from Resuscitation Council UK

  British Journal of Sports Medicine · 2024-08-08 · 16 citations

  articleOpen access

  Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is the leading cause of sudden death in athletes during high-level, organised sport. Patient-related and event-related factors provide an opportunity for rapid intervention and the potential for high survival rates. The aim of this consensus was to develop a best-practice guideline for dedicated field-of-play medical teams responding to SCA during an organised sporting event. A task-and-finish group from Resuscitation Council UK identified a stakeholder group of relevant experts and cardiac arrest survivors in March and April 2022. Together, they developed a best-practice guideline using the best available evidence. A public consultation period further refined the guideline before it was finalised in December 2023. Any sudden collapse, without rapid recovery during sporting activity, should be considered an SCA until proven otherwise. Field-of-play medical teams should be empowered to access the collapsed athlete as soon as possible and perform initial essential interventions in situ. This includes a suggested minimum of three cycles of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation in persistent shockable rhythms while other aspects of advanced life support are initiated. There should be careful organisation and practice of the medical response, including plans to transport athletes to dedicated facilities for definitive medical care. This best-practice guideline complements, rather than supersedes, existing resuscitation guidelines. It provides a clear approach to how to best treat an athlete with SCA and how to organise the medical response so treatments are delivered effectively and optimise outcomes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Case support for compression-only CPR: St. John Ambulance

  International Journal of First Aid Education · 2021-08-23

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Introduction: Health, Healing and Caring

  Gender & History · 2021-10-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• There’s a complex history of skin lighteners in Africa and beyond

  2020-03-05

  preprint1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 4 Beauty Queens and Consumer Capitalism

  2020-09-09

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Bernard Foëx

  University of Edinburgh

  4 shared

• James Dodd

  MRC Epidemiology Unit

  4 shared

• Robert Parker

  University of Cape Town

  4 shared

• Uta G. Poiger

  3 shared

• Tani E. Barlow

  Rice University

  3 shared

• Gavin D. Perkins

  3 shared

• Priti Ramamurthy

  National Geophysical Research Institute

  3 shared

• Alys Eve Weinbaum

  University of Washington

  3 shared

Labs

• Lynn M. Thomas LabPI

Awards & honors

• Watson Foundation
• Social Science Research Council
• U.S. Department of Education (Fulbright)
• Woodrow Wilson Foundation
• National Endowment for the Humanities