Encouraging and Supporting Progression: the MA in History of Medicine (360G-Wellcome-213402_Z_18_Z)

The Master of Arts in History of Medicine at Newcastle combines three modules common to all MA History programmes with three bespoke modules that deepen students’ understandings of medical history and develop their methodological and historiographical skills, in preparation for their dissertation. ‘Introduction to the History of Medicine’ provides an overview from antiquity to the twenty-first century, analysing the relationship between medicine and other aspects of Western and non-Western human civilizations; ‘The Patient in History’ examines how patients have been perceived, constructed and contested, and considers the extent to which the patient’s voice can be retrieved from different source materials; ‘Diseases in History’ analyses how diseases have been socially, culturally and historically understood, constructed and responded to. The core history modules are ‘The Practice of History’, which studies how historians have practiced their discipline in the second half of the twentieth century; ‘Research Skills and Dissertation Training’, which equips students with the practical skills required for dissertation work; and the 60 credit Dissertation module. Students select the independent study module, or a further MA module from within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Assessment methods include research essays, a literature review, a poster, a dissertation proposal and the dissertation.