Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Education for AAHM 2001 President Judith Walzer Leavitt formed a Committee on Education and Training in the summer of 2000, and charged it with determining what the AAHM might do to further the teaching of the history of medicine in colleges, universities, and medical schools. We were specifically charged with identifying how AAHM might: build bridges between practitioners of the history of medicine and the larger scholarly world. enhance the visibility of the discipline; build bridges on campuses; build bridges to diverse venues. The committee discussed these issues via a listserv set up at Saint Louis University, and we began with the following issues: history departments traditionally hire faculty with the most important criteria being time period and geographic area. As departments get larger, then subject areas are often added. Is it practical to try to get history departments to see history of medicine as one of their "crucial subject areas"? While some historians of medicine (like me) come out of training programs in the history of medicine and science, most come from history programs where they study history of medicine as an important subfield. How do we get history departments to see historians of medicine as contributing to the overall study of American, European, and non-Western history? (to paraphrase Joan Scott's famous article on gender, how do we get history dept's to see history of medicine as a category of analysis?) Textbooks are an important area that help to define the discourse about important areas of history. This is particularly important, I think, in survey textbooks. How can we ensure that topics in the history of medicine are introduced in survey textbooks? (some of our good friends are writing textbooks. How can we influence them?) Medical education is changing dramatically, and medical educators seem amenable to introducing students to the kinds of questions we historians of medicine ask. There are a number of programs around the country--what can we do to expand these opportunities? How can we mentor graduate students in the history of medicine? Are there some areas we might suggest for improvement? After several months of very engaging discussion, we make the following recommendations:1) To build bridges between practitioners of the History of Medicine and the larger scholarly world, and to enhance the visibility of the discipline, the American Association for the History of Medicine can encourage its membership to publish History of Medicine scholarly articles and teaching forums in newsletters of other scholarly associations, including but not limited to Perspectives, the OAH Newsletter, The History Teacher, the newsletter of the World History Association and on-line H-Net discussions; present papers and organize panels to present at the conferences of diverse scholarly organizations that show the importance of the History of Medicine to the study of history in general; participate actively in the writing of survey level history textbooks and online history courses to insure that these texts contain historically-accurate explanations of the importance of the History of Medicine to general historical trends; sponsor (or help individual members sponsor) NEH seminars that cover History of Medicine topics but welcome the historians from all fields; and participate in the discussions emerging along the historical field's "growth plates," including World History and Transnational History . 2) To build bridges on campus, and to increase the visibility (and number) of History of Medicine courses taught on university and medical school campuses, the American Association for the History of Medicine can: sponsor workshops and seminars at annual meetings to discuss strategies for placing History of Medicine courses into a university's distribution requirements, General Education or General Studies programs, or medical school curriculum; sponsor workshops and seminars at annual meetings to discuss strategies for participation of Historians of Medicine in interdisciplinary programs, including bioethics and medical humanities programs; and mentor graduate students so that they are able to teach diverse fields beyond the history of medicine and science. (This is especially important because many schools are reluctant to redeploy teaching field slots when replacing retiring historians). encourage graduate students trained in the history of medicine to choose to adapt their knowledge and interests to the needs of those in the academic health sciences centers establish a standing AAHM Committee on "teaching" or "outreach" to help to implement some of these proposals and to generate more ideas on a permanent basis. 3) Building bridges to diverse venues. The American Association for the History of Medicine can: work to develop or publicize existing opportunities for practitioners of the History of Medicine in Public Policy Institutes and other venues; and seek opportunities to create endowed chairs in the History of Medicine at universities and medical schools. 4) Some specific suggestions: Set up a permanent column for the Bulletin on teaching and outreach; Create a pedagogy website affiliated with the AAHM website. Explore the possibility of an institution where the dean of its A&S school and chair of its history department (history of science, history of medicine) and the dean of its medical school (and maybe other health professional schools) and some chairs of its clinical departments would be willing to collaborate over several years to develop a highly interdisciplinary “practical” program to train graduate students in history of medicine. Introduce an “internship” into history of medicine graduate programs. Rather than a full track or area of concentration, something as minimally invasive as an "internship" could be more widely introduced in graduate training programs. This experience would give students trained outside medical center environments an immersion (or at least a critical sensitization) of how medical historians are commonly understood and utilized within medical environments (or at least that specific working environment). Similar internships could (perhaps should) be available for museum, archive, corporate and other ventures in which "medical historians" are increasingly seeking employment. Committee Members: Charlotte Borst, Chair and Associate Professor, Dept History, Saint Louis Univ.** Chester Burns, Professor, Medical Humanities Program, Univ. Texas Medical Branch at Galveston Jo Hays, Professor, Dept. History, Loyola University of Chicago Kathleen Jones, Associate Professor, Dept. History, Virginia Tech James Mohr, Professor and Chair, Dept. of History, University of Oregon Carolyn Shapiro, Associate Professor, Dept. History, Grand Valley State University Phillip Wilson, Professor, Medical Humanities Program, Pennsylvania State Universiy Medical Branch at Hershey **Committee Chair