Medical School Selective Courses
Selective courses consists of five or six weekly two-hour sessions commencing with student-led discussions of assigned articles followed by examination and discussion of archival materials. Prior to the beginning of the course, reading assignments are provided on the student on-line portal. After the final session, students have several days to compose short essays summarizing all of the materials.
“Introduction to the History of Medicine”
(M04 577H)
Week I: Ancient Medicine: Hippocrates and Galen
Week II: The Beginnings of Modern Medicine: Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey
Week III: Great Developments in Internal Medicine: Rene Laennec and Ignac Semmelweis
Week IV: The Rise of Pathology: Giovanni Morgagni and Rudolf Virchow
Week V: The Development of Modern Surgery: The Discovery of General Anesthesia and Joseph Lister
Week VI: Medical Science in America: William S. Halsted, Helen Taussig and Alfred Blalock
Fall 2016 SYLLABUS – READINGS – STUDENT SUMMARIES
Fall 2015 SYLLABUS – READINGS – STUDENT SUMMARIES
“Major Epidemics in the History of Medicine”
(M04 579H)
Week I: The Black Death: Bubonic Plague
Week II: Smallpox and Vaccination
Week III: Insect-Carried Diseases: Malaria and Yellow Fever
Week IV: Tuberculosis and Syphilis
Week V: Modern Epidemics: Influenza and AIDS
Winter 2017 SYLLABUS – READINGS – STUDENT SUMMARIES
Winter 2016 SYLLABUS – READINGS – STUDENT SUMMARIES
“Medical Discovery and Progress from War”
(M04 590H)
Week I: The Early Frontier, 1800-1850: William Beaumont, the First American Medical Researcher
Week II: Scurvy, the Discovery of Vitamins and the Development of Controlled Clinical Trials
Week III: The Spanish-American War: Walter Reed and Yellow Fever; The First World War: Neurosurgery and Neurology of Cerebral Trauma
Week IV: The Second World War: Antibiotics and Blood Transfusion
Week V: From Shell Shock to PTSD: The History of Psychotraumatology
Spring 2017 SYLLABUS – READINGS – STUDENT SUMMARIES
Spring 2016 SYLLABUS – READINGS – STUDENT SUMMARIES
