Using Opera to Teach the History of Medicine to Medical Students and Their Assessment of This Novel Approach

Teaching medical students about the history of their future profession, is generally regarded as an important component of a comprehensive medical education, yet it is seldom taught. A knowledge and understanding of the historical development of medicine, surgery and therapeutics allows the students to contextualise and place the current state of medical science within a historical continuum and it also allows glimpses into the future. The author takes the importance of the teaching of the history of medicine as a given. The question is “how” to deliver this history of medicine teaching. In this unusual, ethically approved educational programme, 24 non-selected first clinical year medical students were taught aspects of history of medicine through the medium of opera. The student’s feedback on this programme was generally very positive and they reported that the opera helped increase their empathy, listening skills and touched many of them emotionally.