This is probably the most important synthesis of the history of medical education since the collective work edited by Charles D. O’Malley in 1970 (which did not include a chapter on Canada, to which several chapters are devoted here).Footnote 1 As the title suggests, Transforming Medical Education: Historical Case Studies of Teaching, Learning, and Belonging in Medicine in Honour of Jacalyn Duffin is not an encyclopedia on medical education. Rather, it presents and interrelates significant cases from different periods and jurisdictions which, when taken together, offer an overview of contemporary trends in the study of medicine in general and medical education in particular. With twenty-three contributors, including the two editors, this volume makes a significant contribution to the history of medical education, a somewhat less abundant and perhaps less synthesised part of the history of medicine than that of health care or disease, but one which seems to be experiencing some revival in recent years.Footnote 2
The purpose of the book is twofold. On the one hand, it offers new ways of thinking about and synthesising the history of medical education. The literature review in the introduction is probably the most up-to-date one currently available on the topic, and chapters such as Maria Pia Donato’s on surgical training in hospitals point to largely unexplored avenues for research. On the other hand, it is a tribute to the Canadian doctor and medical historian Jacalyn Duffin, Professor Emerita at Queen’s University. Therefore, three chapters touch on the history of medical education in Canada, in addition to a full section (three more chapters) on the work of Jacalyn Duffin. These include an interview with Professor Duffin by the two editors, which is in itself an eyewitness account of the last few decades of medical education by someone who has devoted her career to it as a doctor and historian. Given that Canada is often not the most prominent territory in the global history of medicine, the fact that this book comes from Canadian research teams adds to its value and originality.
The chapters are organised into five parts. Besides the final part on Jacalyn Duffin, there are sections on the transmission of knowledge and practices, fights against injustice, medical training spaces and professional identities. The book therefore adopts a thematic approach to its subject, supported by a detailed index and bibliographies for each chapter, although it is also partly chronological – from the Middle Ages to the present day – and covers geographical areas on all inhabited continents (albeit little on Oceania). The title of the book takes on a double meaning, as the contributors look at the past of medical education but also, in line with Duffin’s approach, at its future and what it should change. Indeed, ‘transforming medical education’ could be understood both as education that has always been transformative and as a call to transform medical education today to prepare it for the decades ahead. Geoffrey L. Hudson and Marion Maar’s chapter on medical school mandatory placements in Indigenous communities in northern Ontario is a case in point.
For all these reasons, this book should be a primary reference for anyone researching or teaching the history of medical education, if only for the chapters that are most relevant to their own interests. Researchers and teachers who focus on the history of medical education in Canada, for example, will find it particularly valuable. As a collective book, it is also a strong reference for making the case in favour of the teaching of history in medical faculties. It lends weight to the arguments put forward on this subject, not least by Jacalyn Duffin herself.Footnote 3 Transforming Medical Education will hopefully inspire other syntheses of medical education history, bringing together multiple institutional or national histories to reveal broad historical trends.
