Can we talk? Hannah promotes communication between medical schools

Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine Newsletter (Toronto, Canada), Number 18, Summer, 1993

The idiosyncracies of Canada’s medical schools can be both a strength and a drawback. An exchange program sponsored by the Hannah Institute hopes to bring the schools a little closer by opening up the communication lines from coast to coast.

The first exchange took place this April between the University of Western Ontario and the University of Calgary. Medical students met at Western for three days of talks and socializing.

“One of the objectives is to have each student work up a talk of ten minutes to stimulate further research,” says UWO Hannah Professor Paul Potter, who helped coordinate the exchange along with Calgary’s Dr. Peter Cruse.

Topics ranged from diseases among the Cree of Alberta to the old medical art of uroscopy.

Professor Potter says he hopes the exchange will become a regular annual affair, possibly with next year’s exchange matching Calgary with Halifax’s Dalhousie University.

Publisher: Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine

Location: Toronto, Canada

Editor and Writer: David South

I worked as Editor and Writer for the newsletter of the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine (under the direction of the Editor-in-Chief and Hannah Executive Director Dr. J.T. H. Connor) in the early 1990s. Located close to the University of Toronto and within a neighbourhood claiming a long association with medical and scientific discovery (Sir Frederick Banting, co-developer of insulin for the treatment of diabetes, lived at 46 Bedford Road,), the goal was to better connect Canada’s medical history community of scholars and raise the profile of the funding resources available to further the study of medical history in Canada.

“… in recent years it has become a pursuit for a growing number of researchers. … Behind much of this growth has been the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine which has encouraged writing …”.
Abstracts in Anthropology, Volume 43, Issues 3-4.

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