Has the History of Canadian Medicine Come of Age? A Personal View

This short “think piece” interrogates the present state of medical history in Canada. What, I ask, are the past accomplishments and future prospects of this new genre of historical writing in Canada? Has Canadian medical history come of age? And what do we mean by asking this question? My answer is that while there is much to celebrate in the sterling individual works in the field in the past 20 years, the field more generally has yet to confront more difficult questions of identity, theory and methodology that, in my view, any young subfield needs to tackle to survive in the presently overcrowded academic marketplace of approaches and ideas.