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Course image Australian: Health Records
Advanced Australian Records
AU-302: Australian: Health Records
Course Summary:

Optional Print Course Material: Australian: Health Records

*Course material will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

This course looks at how health records can help with family history research. Records for general hospitals, maternity hospitals, asylums, sanatoriums and other health institutions will be looked at together with staff records. In addition it looks at selected epidemics and medical treatments that our ancestors might have been familiar with.

Course Length: 7 weeks
Contact Hours: 18
Grading Scale: 70% Tests/30% Assignments
Course Length: 7 weeks
Course Content

MODULE 1
INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH RECORDS
Brief history of health in Australia
Brief timeline
Epidemics
Infectious disease hospitals
Occupational health issues
What are health records?
Resources for identifying & locating health records

MODULE 2
GENERAL HOSPITAL RECORDS
Why use hospital records?
Types of hospital records
Public Hospitals
Private Hospitals

MODULE 3
LYING-IN (MATERNITY) HOSPITALS
Mortality Rate (Women and infants)
Lying-in hospitals
Midwives
Maternal and Child Welfare Clinics
Postpartum Depression
Indigence Allowance
Baby farming
Pregnancy Terminations

MODULE 4
ASYLUMS
What are asylums?
What the records tell us
Early History
Locating asylum records
State Archives
National Archives
Other resources

MODULE 5
OTHER HEALTH INSTITUTIONS
The voyage out and shipboard health
Quarantine stations
Sanatoriums
Inebriate Institutes
Lazarets
Other institutions
Dental hospitals

MODULE 6
HOSPITAL COMMITTEES, STAFF & MEDICAL TREATMENTS
Hospital committees
Staff records
Specialist indexes
Professional associations and Trade unions
Hospital archives
Australian Country Hospital Heritage Association
Medical Treatments

SUGGESTED READING & RESOURCES