2. Feb 2012 15:58 2. Feb 2012 16:03

New medical museum at St. Olav

A medical museum will open in the new Knowledge Centre at St. Olavs Hospital. The museum will use modern exhibition techniques and will be open for everyone.

2. Feb 2012 15:58 2. Feb 2012 15:58

A space of approximately 150 square metres on the third floor of the centre will house the museum, right above the main entrance by the main library. The plans for the museum will make it very accessible as it is planned in a so-called traffic area.

	The museum committee on historical ground in the 1902-building. From left to right: Karen Johanne Buset (NTNU UB, medical library), Petter Aadahl, Ivar Skjåk Nordrum (both St. Olav and the Faculty of Medicine) and Anne Mari Selven Kvam (Faculty of Medicine). Morten Sylvester (NTNU Museum of Natural History and Archaeology) was not present at the time. Photo: Christina Yvonne Olsen

- We would like a dynamic museum with interchangeable digital elements and a varied profile, says Ivar Skjåk Nordrum from the Faculty of Medicine. He heads the museum committee which includes representatives from both the university and the hospital.

- Our ambition is to dynamically convey medical history and the museum is for everyone, not just professionals and the particularly interested, Skjåk Nordrum underlines.

According to Skjåk Nordrum the location is ideal as this building will be at the centre of the new university hospital, with the hospital’s biggest auditorium and library for medicine and health nearby.

- Why is it important to open a medical museum of this kind?

- It is important that we are something more than the age in which we live. A medical museum can contribute to a wider perspective and reflection, and be a contrast to what I see as a problem today: The lack of historical perspective. If we can manage to connect the modern world to history it will make it easier for us to step out of our own little sphere and attempt to look at the world more comparatively.

- The museum should, in short, make us think. It is also important to create and identity and ownership in relation to profession and workplace, not just to your own career, according to Skjåk Nordrum.

It is not an ambition to fill the museum with old hospital equipment. However, if this is seen as useful to illustrate specific themes there are lots of equipment to choose from, - a lot of antiquarian equipment is stored in a loft in Trondheim. This valuable collection, containing everything from iron lungs to laboratory equipment, has been collected by Jon Lamvik, professor and “grand old man” at the Faculty of Medicine.

The Knowledge Centre is due to be completed in September 2012. Trondheim’s new medical museum will open when the centre opens for business.