Contemporary and Scientific History of Medicine Working Group
Institute for Ethics, History and Philosophy of Medicine
The Contemporary and Scientific History of Medicine Working Group sees itself primarily as a contemporary and scientific history of medicine. It is concerned with the critical reflection of medical discourse and medical practice and asks why medicine is the way it is today and whether it could (or perhaps even should) be different. All of today's medical facilities or institutions, evidence and structures are once again examined in terms of their origins. A contemporary and scientific history of medicine uses historical methodology to find answers to current questions: Why does the study of medicine always have to be reformed? How did today's system of Clinical Department and research, ideally "translational medicine", come about? What problems and problematizations have led to the emergence of research interests (especially in the field of biomedicine) and corresponding institutions and disciplines, but also to the socialization, activation and regulation of specific things (e.g. active substances)? Why have certain discourses, thinking styles and practices prevailed in the respective specialist areas?
Since the MHH has been an important international center of high-tech medicine for over fifty years, the history of the MHH is not only of local interest. At the Institute for Ethics, History and Philosophy of Medicine, the founding phase of the MHH reform project itself, outstanding developments such as in psychiatry, virus research, transplantation medicine and medical informatics as well as personalities such as the former MHH Rector Fritz Hartmann are also being researched historically.