Trauma surgery...emergency medicine...forensic anthropology. We know them today as invaluable fields in medicine and science - fields that save lives or provide important insight into the circumstances behind a traumatic death. What you may not know is that these professions, in many ways, were literally born under fire on the battlefields of war - from the Civil War to the conflict in Vietnam - where physicians and other medical professionals, working under dire conditions, often had to make quick decisions in diagnosing and treating severely wounded soldiers.
Take a look at this intriguing part of military medicine history and other compelling aspects of medicine's past and future with our most recent Festival "Perfect Partner" -- the National Museum of Health and Medicine/AFIP (NMHM), a Department of Defense museum located on the campus of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Through its three engaging Expo exhibits this fall, NMHM experts will not only take you back into medical history, but will also show how the past has contributed to progress in contemporary medical science.
NHowever, the Museum's participation in the Festival does not stop there! In October, it is also hosting the Nifty Fifty school presentation of Franklin Damann, anatomical curator at NMHM, and the performance of the Cosmic Tenors, a dynamic singing trio comprised of noted astrophysicists - James Gates of the University of Maryland, Larry Gladney of the University of Pennsylvania, and Herman White from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
"Having the opportunity to share the excitement of medicine, medical history and science with students, teachers and the public through the Festival and Expo is particularly exhilarating for us at the National Museum of Health and Medicine," says Adrianne Noe, Director of the Museum.
In fact, she says, the Museum began in March promoting the Festival when NMHM sponsored an Albert Einstein dramatization event during their celebration of Brain Awareness Week. "We announced the Festival there and started to get people interested in attending this fall," she says.
Tim Clarke, NMHM Deputy Director of Communications, adds: "The Museum's Expo presentations will especially give visitors an interesting look at how things have changed in the last 50 or 100 years in the way, for example, diseases are diagnosed and treated, how broken bones are healed and how surgery is performed." Festival goers will also learn some great things about anatomy, pathology and the inner workings of the human body, says Tim (who has been doing a great job spreading the word about the Festival and Expo through Twitter @TimClarkeJr and other social media!).
Don't miss these NMHM exhibits:
* Visibly Human - About the Human Body. Explore the inner workings of the human body while interacting with intriguing plastinated human organs, real human bones and other specimens and artifacts from the Museum's Historical and Anatomical Collections. Images from the Museum's vast photographic archive will illustrate the advances in modern medicine.
* Binding Up the Nation's Wounds - Military Medicine From the Civil War to Today. Learn the origins of the NMHM - the nation's renowned medical museum. Watch a demonstration of a Civil War-era amputation, and look into the future of military medicine as you learn about technological advances that are improving medical care for our nation's military personnel.
* Connect the Bones - Forensic Identification of War Dead. Become a forensic anthropologist for a day! From a set of bones, determine such information about the person as estimation of age, sex, height, race and the type of trauma that caused death. Learn about the history of using forensic anthropology to identify war dead.
We thank the National Museum of Health and Medicine and our other valued Sponsors as they join us in our goal of inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers!
Education
Humanities & Social Science
