In celebration of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine’s 50th anniversary, this exhibition traces the experiences of students in the undergraduate education program from acceptance through to graduation and residency.
In September 1969, the first 20 students began at McMaster’s new School of Medicine. Dubbed in the local press as “pioneers” in the “great McMaster experiment,” these students were the first in a radically new kind of medical school. It accepted students from a non-science background, emphasized problem-based learning and small-group tutorials, had no discipline-specific courses, and peer and tutorial leader evaluations replaced exams. Over its 50 year history, the “McMaster experiment” has proven highly successful. The school has become consistently ranked within the top 50 medical schools in the world and garnered international renown for both its educational innovations and high-impact research.
In celebration of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine’s 50th anniversary, this exhibition traces the experiences of students in the undergraduate education program from acceptance through to graduation and residency. Photographs, documents, and artifacts from the Health Sciences Archives are brought together with alumni anecdotes to share a glimpse of what it is like to be a student on the path to becoming a MD in this illustrious program.
Student-faculty football match, about 1970.
HSA, OV5.
Faculty members face off against students likely from the first medical class. Dr. John Evans, founding dean of McMaster’s Faculty of Medicine, can be seen center-left.
MD student tutorial group discussing the problem of coagulation, 1970s.
HSA, Box 136.8, file 17
Students studying limb anatomy in the anatomical pathology laboratory, around 1977.
HSA, Box 136.7, file 6.
Student using an audiovisual study carrel at HSL, 1979.
HSA, Box 136.8, file 17.
In the 1970s, the HSL had 56 wired a/v carrels and nearly 3,000 slide/tape sets in its collection.
HSA, OV1. McMaster’s medical school has a long history of leading Canadian medical schools in admitting the highest proportion of women. The class of ’83 was the first at McMaster to have more women (55) than men (45).
MD student organizers of “A Fair Share Symposium” grabbing lunch between sessions, March 1987.
HSA, Box 136.8, file 15.
Identified are (from left): Andrew Quinn, Miles Ellis, James Orbinski, and Allan Kitching.
Health Sciences Library (HSL) study carrels, around 1992.
HSA, Box 196.2, file 5
Second-year MD students learning with a standardized patient (SP), ca. 1997.
HSA, Box 137.5, file 7. Identified (from left) is: Giles Hunter (SP), Zubim Punthakee, Tonya de Waal, Ellen Rumm, and Dr. Jennifer Blake, chair of the undergraduate MD program. SPs are healthy people trained to realistically reproduce the physical/emotional symptoms that a real patient would present in various medical scenarios. The SP program was formalized in 1971 as an educational tool for the undergraduate MD program. SPs are now used in all Faculty of Health Sciences programs.
First MD graduates of the Niagara Regional Campus with regional assistant dean, Dr. Karl Stobbe (centre), May 2011.
HSA, digital collection.