[Medicine's collective memory: a contribution to the debate on gendersensitive medicine]

In this article, we explore how the genderhealth gap has developed from a cultural-historical perspective, through the lens of a general practitioner, health scientist and medical historian. We describe the application of the concept of 'the collective memory' to medicine as a discipline, and show how it shapes medicine's identity. Awareness of the collective memory reveals underlying biases and could result in a sustainable and systematic change in medicine that ultimately improves the health of both women and men. When physicians critically examine the past in collaboration with historians, room to reflect on current practices is created. Why do we think the way we think, and act the way we act? This collaborative examination of the past allows us to understand the roots of the genderhealthgap and to work towards increasingly gender-sensitive medicine.