How many times, in your medical school lectures, did you find yourself regaled with tales and pictures of famous physicians of old? Does William Osler ring any bells? Alexander Fleming, anyone? Remember Joseph Lister? Or William Harvey?
Since the dawn of humanity, people have been hard-wired to learn best through story-telling. Long before there was reading or writing, important learning was passed down the generations through legends, songs, recited poems and images, which brought bare facts alive and helped people commit them to memory. Even today, I firmly believe that sharing ‘human’ stories about the people behind medical advances helps students to put that learning into context and makes recall of dry facts much easier and more interesting.
But now consider, how many of the iconic figures presented to you in your student days were women - or from any other under-represented groups, for that matter?
Of course, we know it’s not that such role-models don’t exist – it’s just that their portraits are not hanging on the walls of Royal Colleges, or lining the corridors of national academies, and they are too often forgotten.
As medical educators, we can put that right.
I am writing this reflection on International Women’s Day, which always brings to my mind my personal medical hero, Dr Ameyo Adadevoh. Dr Adadevoh was the physician who, in the face of significant pressure and threats from political authorities, prevented the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa from spreading into Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and one of its most important inter-continental travel hubs – thereby averting even greater catastrophe. Tragically, the professional integrity and brave, principled actions of Dr Adadevoh and her team cost them their lives – but saved countless others. Her contribution deserves to be remembered, and it’s my privilege to include her story in my teaching on tropical and imported infections. She makes my students sit up and take note – which is just what I’m aiming for.
Another of my inspirations is Tu YouYou, the Chinese pharmacist awarded the Nobel prize (eventually) for her discovery of artemisinin, the most effective agent we have for treating malaria, which by now has saved millions of lives worldwide. She achieved this through personal sacrifice and dedicated study of ancient Chinese medical scripts. The fact that her discovery was virtually ignored in the West for decades serves as a valuable reminder to students that Western medicine alone does not hold all the answers.
I didn’t consciously include these giants of medicine in my teaching just because they are women. I included them because their stories are amazing, and their impact so profound; so there is nothing contrived about their inclusion.
So let’s make a concerted effort to introduce the stories of more women medical pioneers into our teaching, not only to bring our subject-matter alive and to inspire, but to ensure that the diversity of experts our students hear about properly and fairly reflects the diversity of those who have contributed to global health - and of our students themselves. We often use case-based learning; we can call this ‘icon-based learning’.
