About This Course
This short course explores how the Second World War accelerated the transformation of medicine and healthcare, embedding scientific innovation, state coordination, and population health at the centre of modern medical practice. Across four themed lectures, the course examines how total war reshaped healthcare delivery on an unprecedented scale, from battlefield medicine and civilian emergency care to public health planning and post-war reconstruction.
Learners will examine major advances in trauma management, surgery, and rehabilitation, alongside the widespread introduction of antibiotics, blood transfusion services, and organised emergency medical systems. The course explores the medical challenges posed by aerial warfare, mass civilian casualties, and displacement, as well as the ethical dilemmas associated with wartime experimentation, triage, and resource allocation. Attention is given to mental health, including combat stress, civilian trauma, and the long-term care of veterans.
The course also considers the profound public health and policy legacies of the war, particularly the expansion of state responsibility for health, wartime coordination of hospitals, and the foundations laid for post-war healthcare systems, including the creation of the National Health Service. Through historical case studies and lived experiences, learners will gain insight into how global conflict reshaped medicine at both individual and societal levels.
Learner outcomes
By the end of the course, learners will be able to describe and explain key medical and healthcare developments arising from the Second World War, including advances in antibiotics, trauma care, transfusion medicine, emergency planning, and rehabilitation. Learners will be able to critically reflect on how wartime conditions accelerated medical research, altered professional roles, and reshaped public health policy. They will also develop an understanding of the ethical challenges of wartime medicine and the long-term impact of the conflict on post-war healthcare systems.
Outline of the benefits of the course
This course offers a compelling exploration of medicine in a period of intense global crisis, linking scientific breakthroughs to human experience and social change. Learners will be drawn by the opportunity to understand how familiar features of modern healthcare—antibiotics, blood services, emergency medicine, and national health systems—were shaped by wartime necessity. The course is accessible to those without prior medical knowledge while offering depth for learners with an interest in health, history, and public policy. It provides valuable historical context for contemporary debates about healthcare resilience, ethics, and state responsibility in times of crisis.
Course dates and times
The time is the same for each of the dates, 6:00PM - 8:00PM
1st of June
8th of June
15th of June
22nd of June
Location
Each week, sessions will take place in Greek Room, Main Arts building, Ģý.
Weekly breakdown
Week 1 – Total War and the Remaking of Emergency Medicine
This session introduces the concept of “total war” and explores how the Second World War forced an unprecedented reorganisation of medical services. It examines the integration of civilian and military healthcare, the development of coordinated emergency systems, and the pressures created by aerial bombardment, including the experience of London during the Blitz.
The week also considers advances in trauma care, triage, blood transfusion services, and the large-scale production of penicillin, building on the earlier discovery by Alexander Fleming. The session asks whether modern emergency medicine was fundamentally shaped by wartime necessity.
Week 2 – Public Health, Civilians, and Ethical Boundaries
Week two shifts focus from the battlefield to the home front. It explores evacuation, rationing, infectious disease control, and the management of mass displacement. Attention is given to how governments expanded their authority over population health during wartime.
The session also confronts the darker dimensions of wartime medicine, including medical experimentation and professional complicity under the regime of Adolf Hitler. These discussions provide context for the emergence of modern research ethics in the post-war period.
Week 3 – Psychological Trauma and Rehabilitation
This week examines the human consequences of total war. It traces evolving understandings of combat stress and civilian trauma, alongside the development of military psychiatry.
The session also explores reconstructive and rehabilitative medicine, including advances in plastic surgery associated with Archibald McIndoe. Broader themes include disability, veteran reintegration, and the changing social meaning of injury and mental health.
Week 4 – From War to Welfare: The Post-War Settlement
The final session considers how wartime coordination laid the foundations for post-war healthcare reform. It explores how planning, data collection, and centralised hospital systems informed reconstruction policy.
Particular attention is given to the creation of the National Health Service and the role of Aneurin Bevan. The course concludes by reflecting on the long-term legacy of the war for state medicine, public health systems, and global healthcare governance.
Lecturer
Dr Dylan Jones (Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences (Haematology / Human Physiology)
Module lead for MSE-0003 History of Medicine, MSE-0004 Humans: Structure & Function, MSE-1021 Human Physiology, MSE-2006 Clinical Physiology, MSE-2015 Haematology & Transfusion, MSE-2026 Applied Clinical Technologies, MSE-3015 Haematology, MSE-4062 Diagnostic Sciences, MSE-4069 Applied Diagnostics Sciences, MSE-4090 Blood Sciences.
Contributing lecturer on MSE-1018 Clinical Sciences in Practice, MSE-1017 Key Skills in Medical Science, MSE-1019 Good Laboratory Practice, MSE-1020 Biomedical Practicals, MSE-2003 Research Skills, MSE-2017 Vocational Skills, MSE-3018 Clinical Biochemistry.
Project supervisor for MSE-3013 Research Project and MSE-3008 Dissertation. Dissertation subjects of interest include: role of polymorphisms in genetic regulatory regions, molecular evolution of virulence factors, antibiotic resistance, haematological malignancies and the role of genomics in their detection & management.
Other roles include member of the SMS Board of Studies, member of the SMS Staff Student Liaison Committee and exams officer for SMS.
Course Cost
This Short course is free.
Application
Complete the form below to register for this course. We will contact you closer to the course start date with all the details you will need.