Photo opportunity 2.15pm on Monday 15 October at Verdant Works
A novel way of bringing home to medical students the important role that poverty, personal circumstances and social factors play in people's health will be tried this week (from 15 October) when University of Dundee students are taken on a series of special visits to Dundee's award winning museum of social history Verdant Works.
Over 160 students - all in their second year studying primary care medicine - will visit the museum over four afternoons. There they will experience as closely as is possible today, the conditions faced by Dundee's workers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the jute industry was at its peak, and the effect these conditions had on local culture and people's lives.
Dr Al Dowie, course co-ordinator: ""Reading historical facts is one thing but we hope by visiting Verdant Works students will experience in a vivid way what it really meant to live in crowded, unsanitary conditions, ina culture of poverty and long working hours, where infant mortality was high, and there was no cure for tuberculosis, measles, or whooping cough. The visits will put community medicine into context, giving some sense of how conditions such as dust in the mills resulted in respiratory problemsfor example, with the students extending the link between personal circumstances and health to present day realities."
The visits have been arranged following a move by tutor and Ancrum Road Surgery GP Dr Liz Allen who has taken her own students there in the past and noted the benefits.
Alan Rankin, chief executive of Dundee Heritage Trust: "We are delighted to welcome the students to Verdant Works. The museum is a tremendous learning resource for all ages. The social impact of the jute industries on the people of Dundee are graphically portrayed within the museum and really do bring the subject to life."
Contact
Dr Al Dowie
Lecturer in General Practice Education
University of Dundee
Tayside Centre for General Practice
Kirsty Semple Way
DUNDEE
DD2 4AD
SCOTLAND
Tel. +44 (0)1382 632501
Fax +44 (0)1382 633839