McGill University medical students delivered award-winning presentations at the 2025 annual meeting of the American Osler Society in Pasadena, California, reinforcing the institution's leadership in medical humanities research. The event gathered physicians, researchers, and students globally to examine medicine's history and its modern relevance. This consistent academic excellence underscores the vital importance of integrating humanities into medical education to cultivate more reflective and historically aware practitioners.
Three McGill students participated, with Paris Dastjerdi winning first prize for her presentation "Restoring Avicenna's Tomb: A Historical Analysis of William Osler's Efforts." Meygan Brody received third prize for "Justifying Judgment: How Canadian Temperance Textbooks Use Medicine to Teach Morality," while Reda Hessi presented on "Harold Griffith and Sir Robert Macintosh: Untold Stories of Curare's Journey to the Operating Room." Since the Best Medical Student Presentations awards began in 2023, McGill students have secured six of nine prizes, including first place each year. This track record highlights how sustained institutional support for humanities research produces tangible scholarly outcomes that enrich the medical field.
The expansion of funding opportunities, such as The Bernadett Family International Medical Student Scholarship Program, further enables this work. Established in 2024, the program funds students to pursue medical humanities research in the United Kingdom. Reda Hessi was a recipient, conducting a four-week London project titled "The Reception of Curare in Medicine and the Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry." Hessi expressed gratitude for the chance to engage with rare collections, noting it would deepen her research and perspective. Such scholarships are crucial for fostering international academic exchange and uncovering historical insights with contemporary implications, details of which can be found at www.americanosler.org/content/awards-scholarships/international-medical-student-scholarship-program.
McGill's influence extended beyond student awards, with alumni Brendan Ross, a psychiatry resident at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, serving as both presenter and session chair, and Ali Fazlollahi, a recent graduate and previous Molina award winner, also participating. Annmarie Adams delivered the McGovern Lecture, "Maude Abbott: A Life in Ten Spaces," which used a spatial biography approach to explore Abbott's pioneering congenital cardiac disease studies and her relationship with William Osler. These contributions demonstrate how medical humanities bridge past and present, offering frameworks for understanding current medical challenges through historical context.
The meeting successfully emphasized the intersection of medicine and the humanities, with McGill's involvement playing a key role. Support from the Osler Library Board of Curators and the Montreal community was instrumental in facilitating student attendance. This collective effort underscores a broader industry shift toward valuing humanities in medical training, which can lead to more empathetic healthcare delivery and innovative problem-solving. The philanthropic backing for such initiatives, including from figures like Faustino Bernadett, whose work is detailed at https://www.bernadett.org/, is essential for sustaining this interdisciplinary focus. For readers, especially those in healthcare and education, these developments signal a growing recognition that medical expertise benefits from historical, ethical, and cultural perspectives, potentially improving patient care and professional practice worldwide.
