If you are a student involved in research in the humanities and social sciences dealing with the history of medicine and health we invite you to give your input on several issues of concern to students in the field of history of medicine.

For the past two years, a small number of us have been very active in promoting student participation in our field. Through our activities, we have raised awareness of the needs and concerns of student scholars and we have begun to build a greater sense of community and collegiality between ourselves. This past fall, we organized the first-ever Joint Atlantic Seminar for the History of Medicine (for more information, see www.jointatlantic.org with the assistance of the Johns Hopkins University and we hope to continue this seminar as an annual opportunity for students across the country to come together to share and sharpen their research with the help of their peers. We have also succeeded in creating special meetings for students at the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) annual meeting similar to other interest groups within the AAHM such as Women Historians and Clinician Historians.

Finally, we have been charged by the current President of the American Association for the History of Medicine, Kenneth Ludmerer, to prepare a report on the activities and interests of students and to recommend ways for the Association to encourage and develop quality scholarship and active involvement among student members.

Towards that end, we have prepared a brief online survey to better assess the interests, needs, and concerns of students in this field and in closely allied fields. Please take the 5-10 minutes needed to complete this survey by directing your web browser to:
www.chass.utoronto.ca/~keelan/cgi-bin/GSSurvey.pl

The survey will be active only for a short window of time due to time constraints - we need time to compile the information and present our report to the governance of the AAHM before the upcoming annual meeting so they may act on our recommendations at that time. Therefore, the deadline for completion of this survey will be February 14, 2004.

Thank you very much for your input and please don't hesitate to contact us with any questions about this survey or broader questions about student involvement in our field.

The Ad-Hoc Committee on Student Affairs for the AAHM:
Jennifer Keelan (Co-Chair; jenn.keelan@utoronto.ca)
Ryan Gregory (Co- Chair; scgregor@utmb.edu)
Jeremy Greene (jeremy_greene@student.hms.harvard.edu)
Todd Olszewski (todd.olszewski@yale.edu)
Harry Marks (Faculty Member; hmarks@jhmi.edu)