History of Medicine Days conference showcases student excellence
By Ansharah Shakil, March 13 2025—
The 34th annual History of Medicine Days will be taking place from Mar. 14-15 at Libin Theatre in UofC’s Foothills Campus. The free, national and interdisciplinary conference invites undergraduate and early graduate students studying medicine, health care, history or literature to present talks and posters on a myriad of topics related to the history of medicine.
Dr Frank Stahnisch, the organizer of the conference, and Maggie Ayriss, the conference coordinator, both shared insights on the conference’s importance and how it promotes passion and innovation.
As Stahnisch explained, the conference is a long-standing staple at UofC. It offers learning opportunities for all the participants involved through panels, includes free breakfast, lunch and dinner for both days, grants prizes and hosts an awards banquet at the end.
“We would like to provide students with the learning opportunity to present at a conference, to provide a warm atmosphere, to learn from each other and to learn from faculty and researchers,” Stahnisch said.
In the panels, students are paired with experts in the field, who allow students to facilitate the discussions. The judging teams consist of faculty, researchers, GPs and student representatives.
“What we would like to instill […] in the students is an awareness for the social and cultural contextualization of medicine,” said Stahnisch. “Medicine is not just what we’re seeing in hospitals. It pertains to so many more things: health, well-being or the lack thereof. We’re also exploring challenges as they exist. That’s what we would like to see students take from the conference, that medicine has all these ramifications, that it’s social in character, that it’s also cultural in character.”
For medicine students, the conference will be helpful later on in their practices by confronting them with questions of background, different perceptions about medicine and disease and different takes on hierarchy and relationships.
Ayriss stressed that even though the conference is about History in Medicine, you don’t have to have a medical background to attend or participate.
“I think it’s really important to have this interdisciplinary approach,” Ayriss said. “It’s really nice to see all of the different disciplines coming together and conversing and interacting and learning from each other, making new connections and new friends and maybe even collaborating in the future. I feel it’s very valuable and beneficial for anyone who gets involved.”
Though participants submitted their applications early on and have been chosen, anyone who would like to attend the conference, to support the students or learn more about the topics the conference discusses, is free and welcome to do so. There is no cost except for the awards banquet. The only requirement is to register, the form for which is available here.
Since the conference happens annually, students who are interested can also begin preparing their ideas for the next call for presentations.
“We’re seeing some students coming back over the years,” Stahnisch said. “We have heard several times that some of the medical students, for example, thought of particularly applying for residencies in Calgary because they had [this conference] experience and thought that’s something they would like to continue.”
Sessions for the conference consider what students want to see through feedback and evaluation, as well as current important topics in the medical field. One example this year is a session on non-Western history of medicine.
The keynote speaker for this year’s conference, Dr. Andreas-Holger Maehle from Durham University in the United Kingdom, is also something to be excited for. Maehle will be giving an address on ethical issues in British and German medical practice.
“It will give an interesting comparative angle on medical ethics. I think it’s still very important these days to talk about empathy and the healthcare system, to create and sustain a kind heart while there are so many technicalities about medicine […] still keeping an important human perspective in the community and beyond post Covid-19,” said Stahnisch.
Ayriss, who is looking forward to interacting with the students and hearing people give their presentations, said the depth and research of the presentations is always impressive.
“The quality of these presentations is extremely high. The students put in a lot of effort and take this very seriously,” she said. “Even for faculty, I think they would be surprised at what they would learn from the students.”
More information about the conference can be found here.