• Offered for Year: 2024/25

• Module Leader(s): Dr Lutz Sauerteig
• Lecturer: Dr Laura Tisdall, Professor Violetta Hionidou, Dr Samiksha Sehrawat, Professor Bruce Baker

• Owning School: History, Classics and Archaeology
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

This module aims to deepen students’ understanding of the history of medicine by examining the figure of the patient. Seminars will introduce students to a variety of ways, in which the ‘patient’ or sufferer of disease has been perceived, constructed and contested over different periods in history. In a range of case studies a patient or a group of patients will feature prominently. We will explore to what extent that patient's or group's voice can be retrieved from source material, the majority of which has not been produced by the patients themselves. Such source material will range from cases published by doctors to letters penned by sufferers to literary and pictorial portrayals of patients. The module aims to deepen the methodological and historiographical skills of students in analysing diverse primary sources to prepare them for their dissertation.

Outline Of Syllabus

Topics may include:
What is 'the patient'?
The patient in pain
The disabled patient
The contested patient
The anonymous patient
The fictitious patient
The 'mad' patient
The fashionable patient
The contagious patient
The patient with an ambiguous identity

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

An introductory session will provide orientation and allow students to meet staff teaching on the module.
Seminars encourage independent study and promote improvements in oral communication, problem-solving skills and adaptability. They encourage students to share ideas and information and develop a sense of common identity as historians before they undertake individual and more specialised advanced research projects. In the event that on-campus sessions need to be reduced, there is the capacity to hold live seminar discussions online and retain timetabled slots.
A drop in session will allow students to discuss their assignment.
Structured learning activities dovetail with the seminars, encouraging students to investigate critically primary source materials relating to the seminar topic.
A virtual discussion board, moderated by the module leader, will enable students to raise questions about the module’s content and organisation.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Submitted work tests intended knowledge and skills outcomes, develops key skills in research, reading and writing.

Students will be expected to submit a formative outline of their essay of 1,000 words and a summative essay of 3,000 words. This piece will test their ability to analyse historical documents and to grasp the methodological issues involved in the academic study of the history of medicine.

Students will be expected to submit a formative essay (1,000 words) on which they will receive feedback. The formative assessed essay will then form part of the summative assessed essay (4,000 words).

This module can be made available to Erasmus students only with the agreement of the Head of Subject and of the Module Leader. This option must be discussed in person at the beginning of your exchange period. No restrictions apply to study-abroad, exchange and Loyola students.

All Erasmus students at Newcastle University are expected to do the same assessment as students registered for a degree.

Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending semester 1 only are required to finish their assessment while in Newcastle. This will take the form of an alternative assessment, as outlined in the formats below:

Modules assessed by Coursework and Exam -
The normal alternative form of assessment for all semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be one essay in addition to the other coursework assessment (the length of the essay should be adjusted in order to comply with the assessment tariff); to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Modules assessed by Exam only -
The normal alternative form of assessment for all semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be two 2,000 word written exercises; to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Modules assessed by Coursework only -
All semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be expected to complete the standard assessment for the module; to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending the whole academic year or semester 2 are required to complete the standard assessment as set out in the MOF under all circumstances.

Reading Lists

• SHS8127's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• SHS8127's Timetable