Courses

Prerequisites: None

Instructor: Dr. Wayne Soon

LE Requirements: Meets Historical Perspectives and Writing Intensive

Description: The course explores the history of medicine from the early 1800s through the present day. Topics include the history of public health, germ theory, medical technology, empire and medicine, health insurance, and mind-body medicine. Hands-on work at the Wangensteen Historical Library will also enrich our understanding of diseases as more than objective biological entities. Special attention is paid to the ways culture, race, and economy have shaped the history of healthcare over time.

Prerequisites: None

Instructor: Dr. Jole Shackelford

LE Requirements: Meets Historical Perspectives

Description: Introduction to the historical relationship between human health and the environment. How natural/human-induced environmental changes have, over time, altered our experiences with disease and our prospects for health. 

Prerequisites: None

Instructor: Dr. Jennifer Gunn and Dr. Matthew Reznicek

LE Requirements: Meets Diversity and Social Justice in the U.S. and Historical Perspectives

Description: Introduction to the historical relationship of human health and the environment. How natural/human-induced environmental changes have, over time, altered our experiences with disease and our prospects for health.

Prerequisites: Graduate level

Instructor: Dr. Wayne Soon

Description: This seminar explores the history of modern medicine from the early 1800s through the present day. Topics covered include the history of public health, germ theory, medical technology, empire and medicine, health insurance, alternative medicine, and mind-body medicine. Historiographical and research methods will be emphasized. Special attention is also paid to the ways culture, race, geography, and economy have shaped the history of medicine over time.

Prerequisites: Graduate level

Instructor: HSTM Faculty

Description: Introduction to sources, methods, and problems of research in history of science, technology, and medicine. Preparation of a major research paper under faculty supervision. This course meets with HSCI 8112.

Prerequisites: none

Course director: HMED Faculty

Contact: Dr. Jole Shackelford (shack001@umn.edu) or hmed@umn.edu

Description: This course is designed to acquaint third and fourth year medical students with the sources and the methods of historical research in medical topics and to allow them to undertake a short research project on a topic which they help design. Possible topics include the development of the specialty they plan to enter, the history of a particular disease, or aspects of the health care system. The research project will result in a short paper.

Competencies and Objectives

To learn some of the basic issues and sources in the history of medicine.

To design a historical research project.

To gain familiarity with how historical sources may be found and to use a historical library or archive for research purposes.

To prepare a research paper in medical history using the standard scholarly apparatus to make and document an argument or interpretation.

Student Assessment

Students will be evaluated on the interest and importance of their topic, on the quality of their research, and on their success in making and supporting an argument or interpretation in their paper.

Special Instructions

At least two weeks before the period begins, contact one of the instructors to discuss your interest with him/her.

Prerequisites: None

Instructor: Dr. Jole Shackelford

LE Requirements: Meets Historical Perspectives and Writing Intensive

Description: A writing intensive survey of the history of Western biomedical ideas, research, and health care practices from the ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern foundations to the early nineteenth century, and helps explain the origins and appeal of today's alternative medicines as well.

Prerequisites: None

Instructor: Dr. Evan Roberts

LE Requirements: Historical Perspectives and Technology & Society

Description: How did technology come to medicine’s center-stage? This course examines the impact of technology on the production of medical knowledge, professionalization, the development of medical institutions/industry relations, health policy, and gender and race disparities in health care.

Prerequisites: None

Instructor: Dr. Wayne Soon

LE Requirements: Global Perspectives and Historical Perspectives 

Description: This course explores the history of medicine and society in East Asia from the ancient period to the present day. From the globalization of acupuncture practices to the fight against the deadly SARS and COVID viruses, East and Southeast Asians in their homelands and abroad have sought to develop, transform, and disseminate their ways of healing. By critically examining how physicians, nurses, patients, politicians understood diseases, healthcare, and the body in East Asia temporally, this course critically examines the persistence, transformation, and globalization of classical medicine in the region and beyond. Topics covered include the history of traditional Chinese medicine, the encounters of Asian medicine with Western biomedicine, the contestation over vaccination and pharmaceuticals, the role of colonialism in shaping medical practices, the construction of gender in medicine, and the imaginations of Asian medicine in the United States.

Prerequisites: Graduate level

Instructor: Dr. Jole Shackelford

Description: This graduate-level seminar explores the history of primarily western medicine, from professionalization of healing in Greco-Egyptian antiquity to association of postmortem pathology with disease and the clinical movement of early 19th-century Paris.

Prerequisites: Graduate level

Instructor: HSTM Faculty

Description: This graduate-level seminar is an introduction to sources, methods, and problems of research in the history of science, technology, and medicine. The seminar involves the preparation of a major research paper under faculty supervision. This course meets with HSCI 8112.

Prerequisites: none

Course director: HMED Faculty

Contact: Dr. Jennifer Gunn, (612) 624-1909, Dr. Jole Shackelford, (612) 624-4499

Report first day: By appointment at History of Medicine Office, 511A Diehl Hall

Description: This course is designed to acquaint third and fourth year medical students with the sources and the methods of historical research in medical topics and to allow them to undertake a short research project on a topic which they help design. Possible topics include the development of the specialty they plan to enter, the history of a particular disease, or aspects of the health care system. The research project will result in a short paper.

Competencies and Objectives

• To learn some of the basic issues and sources in the history of medicine.

• To design a historical research project.

• To gain familiarity with how historical sources may be found and to use a historical library or archive for research purposes.

• To prepare a research paper in medical history using the standard scholarly apparatus to make and document an argument or interpretation.

Student Assessment

Students will be evaluated on the interest and importance of their topic, on the quality of their research, and on their success in making and supporting an argument or interpretation in their paper.