Worcester's Medical Museums
Spring Newsletter 2018
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Happy Spring season, everyone! It's been quite a changeable three months with snow at both venues.
This quarter's newsletter includes input from our volunteers, events for your diary and news of what has kept us occupied since Christmas. We are always pleased to hear views and feedback from both locations, please do get in touch.
STOP PRESS!
With GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) coming into force in May 2018, we need to make sure that you're still happy to receive these newsletters from us. Worcester's Medical Museums will never pass your details to third parties. We may contact you from time to time with information about news and events between our quarterly newsletters. In the next month we will send a form to confirm your interest in receiving these newsletters in the future.
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What’s new at GMMM?
We mentioned that we’d received a small donation to create some display areas in the Museum and we’re pleased to say the work is now complete! When you visit, you will now find a smart new display platform for our amputation chair, along with new information panels for both the chair and Blossom’s horns. Thanks are due to Dr. Frank Crompton for donating the funds to make this possible, and also to Morris Price (Louise’s Dad!) for building the platform, which was no easy task as the floor of the Museum is on a slight slope!
For those who like to dress up (who doesn’t love to dress up!?) we have also created a dressing-up area at the bottom of the museum next to the Nursing and Midwifery case. Our costume relates to the First World War, and there are plenty for the whole family with a large mirror for you to take selfies in your new getup!
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Mindful Drawing
After attending a great conference about how museums can play an active part in people’s wellbeing, we organised three 30-minute Mindful Drawing taster sessions for NHS staff and volunteers on Wednesday 14 March with Dr. Scarlet-Farr, a volunteer at the medical museum who is also a qualified Mindfulness Meditation teacher.
Part of Museums and Wellbeing Week, the sessions were a resounding success with 100% positive feedback with some useful comments about how to make them even better. We’re hoping to provide similar sessions again in the future, and will be looking for partners and funding, so watch this space if this sounds like something you’d be interested in taking part in when we eventually offer more.
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Engagement Fellow shedding light on ‘flu
The Florence Nightingale Museum has secured Wellcome Trust Funding for an exhibition and events programme in partnership with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Queen Mary University London, to research and investigate the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic. GMMM will be hosting their touring exhibition from the project early in 2019. And, with funding from the British Society for the History of Science, we’re delighted to announce that we have appointed an Engagement Fellow to work with the Curator to add local content to the touring exhibition to bring the facts about one of the deadliest pandemics in human history to life for our local communities.
Laura Mainwaring, a current PhD candidate at the University of Leicester, will carry out research in the history of medicine, drawing on the unique collections at GMMM and at The Hive. We’re looking forward to working with Laura, who is also the Social Media Editor to the British Society for the History of Medicine.
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70 years of the National Health Service
GMMM is working with Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to depict seventy years of the NHS! During July 2018, we aim to display some panels, one for each decade, in the main entrance of Worcestershire Royal Hospital. So far, we have gathered stories from the local newspaper archive at The Hive; we have pulled together relevant objects and photographs from our own collection; and we are about to delve into our oral history collections for personal memories and stories originally recorded on tape.
Now we need you! Can you remember a time before the NHS and how practices in medicine and healthcare have changed? Do you have any personal memories, good or bad, relating to the NHS and would like to share them?
Feel free to post your memories to the usual address, or email louise.price10@nhs.net. And, if you use social media, keep a look out for the hashtag #NHS70 over the next few months as more organisations help to mark the 70th birthday…
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Coming up at GMMM
In April each year we roll up our sleeves and start the deep clean of our displayed objects and cases. This is not an ‘open’ event for members of the public to see the collections, but rather a time for staff and volunteers to work together in a safe and secure environment. If you’d like to help at this year’s Spring Clean, then please telephone Louise on 01905 760738 or email her at louise.price10@nhs.net.
As usual, there will be plenty of opportunity to stop for hot and cold drinks, and Louise usually bakes something – although feel free to bring a donation as she only knows how to make a lemon drizzle! There is no expectation that volunteers will stay all day.
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The Infirmary has been a busy place this quarter with more schools, University students and visits than previous years.
It's incredible to me how supportive volunteers and placement students are in sharing their time, energy and great ideas with us every week. In the past six months we have benefited from 100 days of volunteering, about equivalent to a full time staff member! Perhaps even more effective as we try not to give them too much paperwork to do!
Our 2018 Events programme is being distributed to shops, supermarkets, stations, etc. if you see one please do send me a snap and I can see where they reached :-)
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January = Cleaning Time
The museum store had not seen a duster since opening and 2018 seemed a good time to clear out the supplies and give the shelves and floor a deep clean. 
Thanks to support from Victoria and Louise we got everything done in a day. Our METI boy was trying to be helpful. If you want to get involved with cleaning, Louise at the George Marshall Medical Museum has a Spring Clean on Friday 7th April.
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February: Love Worcester Heritage Festival
This February we repeated 2017 pig heart dissection workshop and it sold out within days!! Thanks to volunteer Louise who adapted he presentation to suit the tight 90 minutes to learn about human heart and then dissect it. Speaking with the parents and participants it was a big hit and the waiting list means there is a demand. Would you be interested in other dissection workshops?
We also reprised walking architecture tours at City Campus of University of Worcester. Again, well attended and some great feedback "The university is doing a good job of preserving our heritage”
"Learned some fun stories, and was left feeling proud that the University have repurposed a fine building in such a positive way”.
We shall be doing inside tours in May, July, August and October and also opening Mulberry House for Heritage Open Day in September. See the events on website and below.
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March Means Microscience!
British Science Week happens every March and as a place that champions STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) we always try to participate. This year University of Worcester held the Microscience Festival in The Hive and offered five science based workshops in a day to schools. Each day saw about 150 students from Year 3, 4, 5 or 6 arrive at 10am to experience all the workshops before leaving at 2:30pm. We offered the ever popular Curiscope t-shirts with augmented reality to learn about anatomist and science communicator Alice Roberts. We also did a crash course session in extracting DNA and other nuclei material from strawberries to introduce the achievements of Rosamund Franklin. Diverse science experiments are not always available in primary school and a low level introduction to the excitement chemistry and biology can bring hopefully triggered some pupils' interest.
As weeks go it was tiring but great to meet so many budding young scientists and share what their internal organs look like!
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Community Case Changeover
Stefan has been doing a work placement with us and has changed the Community Case, here he shares a little of the information he has found.
As part of a work placement in collaboration between the University of Worcester and The Infirmary I have been researching the history of post mortem in relation to an autopsy kit which has been loaned by the George Marshall Medical Museum. The kit itself is believed to be from the 19th century, as indicated by the design of the tolls and case. At the start of 19th century, professional autopsies had been a rare occurrence with the practice banned since the end of the Roman conquest, with a few exceptions. However, autopsies became more common as the years progressed in response to the high demand in bodies for knowledge by anatomists. A preferred option than reliant on black market providing bodies!
Stefan Simpson-Soye,
Joint Honours History and Joint Politics: People & Power
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A Volunteer's View
Since January of this year I have been volunteering at the Infirmary whilst being in my second year of doing an Art & Design and Psychology degree at the University of Worcester. I wanted to gain hands-on experience within a museum setting which will bring forward my artistic practice as well as to further expand future career opportunities and the Infirmary has proved to be the best fit. One project I have completed so far is the Outside board. I was given the task to design a board which will function as an advertising board for both the museum itself and to promote the various events taking place throughout the year.
Even though, I have been here for only a couple months, I already gained valuable knowledge in the different aspect of running a museum and have expanded my computer and communicating skills. I look forward to many more experience and good memories during my stay here.
Anais Goorriah
Joint Honours Art & Design and Psychology
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