Taking histories: joint working of disciplines in medical history scholarship

While there is an increasing emphasis on the value of interdisciplinarity in scholarship in the medical humanities, it is unknown to what extent there is joint working between historians and clinicians in medical history. We aimed to quantify evidence of joint working in authorship of medical history papers.

Observational survey of authorship. We studied authorship data in all papers published in the three major medical history journals between 2009 and 2019 (n = 634).

The majority of medical history papers is written by single authors with single disciplinary affiliations (68%), most commonly history (65%): fewer than one paper in seven (14%) shows evidence of joint working between disciplines in authorship. A minority of papers (8%) are written by authors with primary medical affiliations. Almost three-quarters (71%) of papers have an acknowledgements section, but only 6% shows clear evidence of joint working between disciplines in the acknowledgements.

Scholarship engaging both historians and clinicians is rare in medical history journals. Possible solutions include enhanced research collaborations between historians and clinicians, interdisciplinary educational seminars and cross-institutional knowledge exchanges.