Medicine through time

http://www.thackraymuseum.org/
Location: LEEDS
Thackray medical museum is fantastic for GCSE History. A visit there provides brilliant opportunities to develop understanding, particularly of developments during the Industrial Revolution. The museum has a large range of educational resources, teachers packs and was set up with GCSE History groups in mind.

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/node6500.html
Location: Central LONDON
The Wellcome Trust opened an exhibition centre in June 2007. If its half as good as the website suggests, then it ought to feature in many schools itineraries in the coming years.

http://www.thegarret.org.uk/index.htm
Location: St Thomas’s Hospital, LONDON
The oldest surviving operating theatre in the country.
http://www.st-marys.nhs.uk/fleming_museum.htm
Location: LONDON
An opportunity to see where penicillin was discovered and learn about its development and impact.

http://www.aagbi.org/heritage/museum.htm
Location: LONDON
Anaesthesia Heritage Centre. The museum collection contains over 2000 objects relating to the story of anaesthesia. Its collections date from 1774 to the present day and provide a detailed insight into the history of medicine relating to anaesthesia and anaesthetic equipment as well as pain relief and resuscitation.

http://www.bethlemheritage.org.uk/
Location: BECKENHAM, KENT
Offers tailored visits for school groups. The museum is home to a large number of documents and sources and is located in the countries oldest mental health hospital, founded in 1247.

http://www.college-optometrists.org/index.aspx/pcms/site.college.What_We_Do.museyeum.museyeum_home/
Location: LONDON.
The website is certainly worth a visit as there are some pretty good images tucked away on there. The museum itself is probably of more interest to teachers and / or further education students than for a KS4 educational visit.

http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/index.php
Location: LONDON
The Nightingale museum offers school group tours in afternoons. They provide a trail pack for students to folow and have a range of exhibitions. In the summer months there is an interesting selection of workshops, presentations and reconstructions that are worth taking a closer look at.

http://www.medicalmuseum.org.uk/
Location: WORCESTER
The George Marshall Medical Museum has a large colection of artefacts and a tailored education programme. They’re also offering an artefacts loans service for schools now - well worth asking about!

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/museum/medical.htm
Location: DUNDEE
Offers a range of permanent and temporary exhibitions. Part of ‘Scotland & Medicine, collections and connections‘ There’s a decent list of museums with medicine sections in Scotland on that page.

http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/museum_gfx_en/SE000133.html
Location: ALDERSHOT
Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps Museum.

A really long list of exhibitions, collections and museum archives relating to medicine in the UK can be found on this page. These vary from ‘the contents of a chemists shop’ through to document colections of dctors, dentists and nursing organisations. Hopefully there’s something on the list thats close to school as these organisations could be excellent sources of resources, artefacts and anecdotes about medicine through time in your neighbourhood.