A Clinician's Rationale for the Study of History of Medicine.

Unlabelled: History of medicine does not receive the coverage it deserves in medical school curricula, or during graduate medical training, in part, because of its lack of impact on direct clinical care. This is particularly disturbing for the specialty of anesthesiology not only due to its colorful history, but also because ours is the only major medical discipline to have developed entirely in the United States. We examine four commonly cited reasons for the study of history in general, and comment on whether these lessons are applicable to medicine and anesthesiology.