[When Switzerland was "feminist": a short history of the feminisation of medicine during the Belle Époque]. / Quand la Suisse était «féministe¼:une petite histoire de la féminisation de la médecine à la Belle Époque.

From the 1860s up until the First World War, Switzerland was famous for its "medical feminism". It attracted women who came from all over the world to study medicine in its universities. In 1906, the number of female students exceeded that of male ones in all of Swiss medical faculties. At this time, Switzerland comprised more medical female students than the rest of Europe or than all of the medical schools of the USA. Using the results of an exploratory historical investigation, this article explores this little-known history of the pioneer feminisation of Swiss faculties of medicine and its impact on medical innovation.

Des années 1860 jusqu'à la Première Guerre mondiale, la Suisse était connue pour son « féminisme médical ¼ et attirait des femmes qui venaient du monde entier pour y étudier la médecine. En 1906, toutes les facultés de médecine helvétiques avaient dépassé la parité et la Suisse comptait même plus d'étudiantes inscrites en médecine que l'intégralité de tout le reste de l'Europe ou des États-Unis. Tirant parti des résultats d'une enquête historique exploratoire sur les premières femmes médecins helvétiques, cet article revient sur cette histoire méconnue de la féminisation pionnière des facultés de médecine suisses et sur son impact sur l'innovation médicale.

Gender awareness among medical students in a Swiss University.

BACKGROUND: Gender is an important social determinant, that influences healthcare. The lack of awareness on how gender influences health might lead to gender bias and can contribute to substandard patient care. Our objectives were to assess gender sensitivity and the presence of gender stereotypes among swiss medical students. METHODS: A validated scale (N-GAMS - Nijmegen Gender Awareness in Medicine Scale), with 3 subscores assessing gender sensitivity (GS) and gender stereotypes toward patients (GRIP) and doctors (GRID) (ranging from 1 to 5), was translated into French and was distributed to all medical students registered at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland in April-May 2017. Reliability of the three subscales was assessed calculating the alpha Cronbach coefficient. Mean subscales were calculated for male and female students and compared using two sample t-tests. A linear model was built with each subscale as a dependent variable and students' sex and age as covariables. RESULTS: In total, 396 students answered the N-GAMS questionnaire, their mean age was 22 years old, 62.6% of them were women. GS and GRID sub-scores were not significantly different between female and male students (GS 3.62 for women, 3.70 for men, p = 0.27, GRID 2.10 for women, 2.13 for men, p = 0.76). A statistically significant difference was found in the GRIP subscale, with a mean score of 1.83 for women and 2.07 for men (p < 0.001), which suggests a more gender stereotyped opinion toward patients among male students. A trend was observed with age, gender sensibility increased (p < 0.001) and stereotypes decreased (GRIP p = 0.04, GRID p = 0.02) with students getting older. CONCLUSION: Medical students' gender sensitivity seems to improve throughout the medical curriculum, and women students have less stereotypes towards patients than men do. The implementation of a gender-sensitive teaching in the medical curriculum could improve students' knowledge, limit gender bias and improve patients' care.

[Beyond the asylum -An other view on the history of psychiatry in the modern age]. / "Ausserhalb der Mauern" - Für eine neue Geschichte der Irrenanstalten in der Moderne.

If one thinks medicine, madness and the past, one image immediately pops into mind: that of the mental asylum. Following the famous work by Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, many historians have thus considered that the medicalization of insanity in the modern age had mostly led to a "great confinement" and a greater segregation of all individuals deemed mentally unfit during the "asylum era': However, new research demonstrates that this classic narrative of the psychiatric past needs to be revised. It discloses that, ever since the 191h century, a whole other medical culture existed as a challenge to asylums, a culture that advocated the integration of the mad and fought to disassociate psychiatry from the dominant model of confinement all throughout the occidental world. This article aims at presenting the results of these historical works that depict another aspect of the psychiatric history, exploring "boarding out" practices, instead of asylum ones.