Teaching medical history to medical students

23 November 2006

By Dr Sanjiva Wijesinha

“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds…”

- Anatole France (1844-1924)

A recent article in Australian Doctor drew attention to a sad fact: that most medical schools do not view history as an essential component of medical education.

With our recent introduction of a new medical curriculum, Monash first-year medicos were given the opportunity of undertaking one of several elective courses including Medical Journalism, Intercultural Communication, Interfaith Dialogue, Sign Language, and Surgical Anatomy – which though “medical” in a sensee were outside the traditional narrow curriculum.

With colleague Dr David Dammery, I accepted the challenge of developing a course in Medical History. We felt that the study of history by our “science-oriented” students would provide inspiration, expand horizons and foster critical thinking. It would demonstrate the traditional continuity of our profession from the times of Susruta, Hammurabi and Hippocrates – and an awarenes of the forces that bring about change.

We began with no fixed syllabus and no fixed content. Rather than boring them with a didactic exposition of medical history, we decided we would facilitate their learning in a manner that would interest them.

At the first class we gave each student a pair of topics – one ‘person’ and one ‘thing’ – to research and present their findings to the class the following week. These ranged from Books like De Motu Cordis and Kitab al-Mansur fi al-tibb, to Places like the Medical schools at Salerno and Alahana Pirivena, to People like Jenner, Maimonides and Avicenna. They could use the libraries and the internet or talk to people who might have relevant information. The discussions that arose from their presentations were interesting and stimulating. We learned as much from them as they did from us!

A subsequent task was to find a primary source (“Books by”) and a secondary source (“Books about”) a pair of doctors – for example Marshall and Warren, Medawar and Burnet, Chain and Florey. The aim - to learn about Australian Nobel prize-winners – and realize that not all modern medical discoveries were made by researchers overseas!

During the semester we visited the Rare Books Room at the Hargraves-Andrews Library and the Brownless Museum of Medical History at the University of Melbourne. We arranged tutorials (with food provided!) in our respective homes where they had the opportunity to browse through our own libraries.

Assessment was based on a 1500 word essay on a topic of the student’s choice (approved by us, of course!) with a prize offered for the best. We have had well researched essays on a variety of fascinating subjects – for example The history of Cataract Surgery, Islamic Medicine, Persian Medicine, Ayurvedic Medicine, Origin of the ‘Serpent and Staff’ symbol, Medical advances resulting from war, Roman military medicine,  Cause of death of the Prophet Muhammad and the Plague outbreak in Australia.

Among the comments we have had from our students at the end of the course are the following:

• “I never realized how much ancient Islamic Medicine has influenced the medicine we practice today”
• “Above all, this course has made me want to continue studying and writing about the history of medicine.”
• “I have learnt so much from our discussions – and enjoyed this course immensely”