Heritage, Philanthropy and Widening Participation come together
16 Dec 2015
Inspiring the next generation in healthcare professions – in honour of Charlotte Beswick
Heritage, Philanthropy and Widening Participation came together to create a unique learning experience for year 8 and 9 students from six local schools.
The team sought to inspire the next generation in healthcare professions and also honour Charlotte Beswick, the first curator of the University’s Museum of Medicine and Health.
Charlotte was the wife of Dr Bill Beswick, who was Executive Dean of the Medical School when it moved from Coupland 3 to the Stopford Building in 1973. She helped sort out boxes of unwanted equipment and effectively acted as an unofficial curator when she started to identify, catalogue and store what were actually fascinating and important historical items in a small ground-floor room.
The event used the fascinating story of John Charnley’s multidisciplinary approach to the development of the artificial hip, with Charnley’s artefacts providing the students with a unique insight into medical history, bio-engineering and healthcare careers.
It saw the students using objects from Manchester Museum through a ‘Medicine through the Ages’ workshop led by Dr Emily Robinson, objects from the Museum of Medicine and Health with a ‘Medical Objects and their Histories’ workshop led by Dr Carsten Timmerman and facilitated by Museum volunteers Dr Peter and Julie Mohr, and a Medical Careers workshop led by Amanda Conway.
And they were challenged by Dr Chris Blanford and his team from the School of Materials to repair actual bones in the ‘bone repair challenge’, using a range of resins, glues and adhesive tapes to attempt making the strongest and lightest repair, introducing a range of bio-engineering concepts.
They also heard from Dr Jennifer Jeffree, Charlotte’s daughter, who shared Bill and Charlotte’s personal and very inspiring story of how Charlotte came about to be the curator of the Museum of Medicine and Health and the importance of teamwork in developing life changing medical innovations.
Dr James Hopkins, University Historian, said: “This event aimed to inspire students and show them the diverse skills that are need to solve big problems – in a very similar way that the University is bringing different disciplines together to address some of the world’s biggest challenges through our Research Beacons. By looking back, the students were able to get a tangible sense of how problems have been solved and the progress that we’ve made.”
Professor Chris Cutts, Associate Dean for Social Responsibility, Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, said: “A great example of Widening Participation, Philanthropy and Heritage coming together to provide a unique learning experience for these local schools. I'd like to thank everyone who gave up their time to contribute to the event and most importantly to the Beswick family for their support of the event and the MHS Museum of Medicines and Health.”
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