Medical History in Canadian Undergraduate Medical Education, 1939-2012

The virtues of learning medical history for medical students have long been argued. Surveys of Canadian medical schools were done in 1939, 1968, and 1999 to discover details about the inclusion of medical history in undergraduate medical education (UME). In 2012, we completed our own survey. While medical history is more commonly included in the core UME curriculum now than in the past, half of Canada’s schools still do not require it. An analysis of trends over time reveals the central importance of longstanding and emergent prejudices and cultural influences as barriers to more widespread inclusion of medical history.