The Histories of Medicine: Toward an Applied History of Medicine

Abstract

An exchange familiar to most historians of medicine recently took place at our school of medicine during a discussion about the inclusion of medical history in the curriculum. A committee consisting of academic medical historians and medical faculty active in the local physician-centre d history of medicine society had been established to help implement these changes. It quickly became apparent that committee members had different assumptions about what constitutes the history of medicine. For the physicians, history served two purposes, the creation of professional identity and didactic training. They believed that medical history should focus on examinations of disease discovery, diagnosis, and treatment from the perspective of medical practice and science, through examinations of the contributions and techniques of exemplary physicians. In contrast, the academic historians at the meeting viewed the history of medicine as a problem-based inquiry that should critically examine current and past medical claims. The academic historians were critical of the clinician emphasis on emblematic physicians, medical progress, and didactic history.