For the past several years, the Center for the History of Medicine has sponsored a week-long trip abroad for students with an interest in medical history. While the first iterations of this program were offered for Phase I students, this year marks the first time it was incorporated into an elective for Phase III students. In this format, the week abroad serves as a complement for sessions spent in Becker Library’s Special Collections reading room looking at primary sources related to the themes of the trip.
Each student trip focuses on a different location where medical education and practice flourished. The first location was Italy, followed by the Netherlands, and now Scotland. While Scotland might seem like a surprising choice, its medical legacy is rich. The city’s Royal College of Surgeons was established in 1505, the first dedicated medical school in the United Kingdom was opened at the University in Edinburgh in 1726, and Scottish physicians and surgeons such as Charles Bell, William and John Hunter, and William Smellie were significant figures in the London medical community. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the strength of the medical faculty made Edinburgh the preeminent place to study medicine in the British Isles, and fledgling medical schools in the United States and Canada used the Scottish model as a guide.
While abroad, students were able to explore Scottish medical heritage by perusing the collections of museums and libraries and visiting key historical sites. They learned about the treatment and perception of Scottish psychiatric patients at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, read about the medical landscape in the Scottish Highlands at the Highland Archives in Inverness, and walked in the footsteps of the notorious Edinburgh serial killers (and purveyors of dissection material for the medical school) William Burke and William Hare. They also had the chance to see anatomical and zoological specimens at Surgeon’s Hall and the Hunterian Museum, both of which have collections spanning hundreds of years that provide insight into the evolution of scientific museums.
One reason that students in the humanities tend to study abroad is that it gives them the chance to put what they’ve studied in its full context. This is equally true for medical students. It is one thing to read about the cramped and crowded living conditions in Edinburgh’s Old City; it’s another to visit an actual one-room hovel and see how easy it would be for infectious disease to spread among the population. The story of the Edinburgh Seven—seven intrepid women who demanded the right to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, thereby becoming the first female undergraduate students at any British university—gains an added dimension when you stand right where a riot broke out when they came to Surgeon’s Hall take their final exam. And, of course, seeing the vast expanse of the Scottish Highlands brings home just how challenging the logistics of medical care in remote areas can be. The Center is grateful that it can offer medical students the chance to experience medical history in such tangible way, and it intends to continue to offer the elective for curious Phase IIIs.