Curator's introduction

It gives me incredible pleasure to be writing my first contribution to the Marks-Hirschfeld Museum newsletter as curator. For those of you I haven’t yet had the pleasure to meet, you can learn a little more about my background and my interests in this Faculty blogpost.

May 2020 was an unusual time to start a new job to say the least, but it did afford me a wonderful opportunity to get to know the collection. Its value and significance was immediately evident and I have grand plans for the development, preservation and presentation of the collection over the next decade.

Newsletter editor Robert Craig has once again produced a wonderfully compelling suite of articles for this edition. We lead with a fascinating summary of Western medical education and licensing: how kings, academics, scientists, philosophers and physicians each played their part in shaping the model of practice we recognise today. This edition also includes a unique insight into the quagmire of collection cataloguing—it’s what our Museum volunteers grapple with every day they come in!

Finally, we are keen to hear from you, our friends and readers. Do you have a story to tell about your experience working in health? Is there a topic you are passionate about that you’d like to share? Would you like to know more about a specific area of our collection? If so then please get in touch by emailing the museum at medmuseum@uq.edu.au. We’d love to hear from you.

Until the next edition, stay happy and in good health.

Charla Strelan
Curator, Marks-Hirschfeld Museum of Medical History