Phases and Positions of the Historiography of Medicine in Germany

Abstract

Already in 1941, A. Pazzini underlined the imporance of the links connecting German and Italian schools of History of Medicine. Today, medical ethics is seen, all over the world, as a necessary integration of the medical curriculum; in Germany, the mandatory integration of ethics in all the phases of the medical curriculum is provided by law. I.e. at the Medical Faculty of Lubecca, three different phases are scheduled:  i. Phase 1: a basic course during the pre-clinical training: history and practice, two hours a week  ii. Phase 2: a seminar with the patients during the clinical training: ethics at the bed of the patient  iii. Phase 3: a studying day for all the students, together with the medical ad paramedical staff.  Obviously, an ethical training does not produce automatically an ethical behaviour, but it helps the students to better understand the relationship with their patients. In this sense, ethics is an important part of the teaching of history of medicine, because ethics, as well as an historical consciousness and the historiography of Medicine concerns the modern development of the relationship between medicine, science and history.