• Offered for Year: 2025/26

• Module Leader(s): Dr Clare Hickman
• Lecturer: Dr Lutz Sauerteig, Dr Kristin Hussey, Dr Shane McCorristine

• Owning School: History, Classics and Archaeology
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

The aims of this module are:

To provide students with an overview of the changing human responses and understanding of disease over time.

To provide students with awareness, at a more advanced level, of the historical, social and cultural embeddedness of medicine through time.

To introduce students thematically, and at a more advanced level, to the main methodological aspects and problems of the academic study of medical history.

To introduce students to the ways, in which the ‘patient’ or sufferer of disease has been perceived, constructed and contested.

To deepen the methodological and historiographical skills of students in analysing diverse primary sources to prepare them for their dissertation.

Outline Of Syllabus

This module is mainly taught by way of seminars illustrating different approaches to researching and understanding the embeddedness of health, disease and medicine in different historical, social and cultural contexts. These will include a variety of approaches including emotional, environmental, sensory and political histories.

Topics for seminars may include the following based on expertise available:

An Introduction to the History of Medicine
Medicine and the Environment
Medicine and the History of the Body
Medicine and the Senses
Locating the Patient Voice
Medicine and Empire
Health of Healthcare Workers
Medicine and Emotions
Medical Education and Dissection

There will also be two workshops on locating and analysing primary sources:

Locating and Using Medical History Primary Sources - Archival handling session with Special Collections at the Philip Robinson Library
Locating and Using Medical History Primary Sources - Digital

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

There will be an introductory lecture which will outline the module in terms of teaching and assessments as well as highlight key themes and concepts in the history of medicine.

The main body of the module will be formed of eight 2-hour seminars. These will provide students with an overview of key approaches and sources in relation to the historical, social and cultural embeddedness of medicine through time. They will also encourage in class discussion and the analysis of both primary and secondary sources.

There will also be two workshops on the use of primary material for medical historians - one using digital databases and one traditional archival handling session with Special Collections. This will help students develop their independent research skills.

In order to provide 1:1 support for students when developing their essays, these sessions will be supported by a drop in surgery with the module leader.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Students will be expected to submit a formative outline of their essay of 1,000 words and a summative essay of 3,000 words. This piece will test their ability to analyse historical documents and to grasp the methodological issues involved in the academic study of the history of medicine.

Submitted work tests intended knowledge and skills outcomes, and develops key skills in research, reading and writing.

Reading Lists

• HIS8173's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• HIS8173's Timetable