RCP Museum Late: exploring patient voices

The Royal College of Physicians Museum is staying open late on Thursday 5 November, from 5.30pm to 8pm, for a special look at its new exhibition, Patient voices: power, truth, understanding. It's a free evening, though you'll need to register in advance to get in.

Medical history usually centres on the famous doctors and the big breakthroughs, but this show turns the focus onto the people who were actually in the beds. It asks what it felt like to survive an operation without anaesthesia, to face the fear of an epidemic, or to live with the social stigma of certain conditions. It also looks at what it's like to live with a life-limiting condition. The exhibition draws on diaries, letters, images, oral histories, objects and artworks to bring those silent patient voices to the front.

It wasn't put together in isolation, either. A patient advocacy steering group helped shape the exhibition throughout its development, and their own voices sit alongside those from the past. The evening is built around two expert tours of the show, led by senior curator Liz Douglas at 6pm and 7pm, so you can hear the stories behind the displays from someone who knows them inside out.

Beyond the exhibition, you can explore the museum itself. It's housed in one of London's most striking modernist buildings and is home to England's oldest medical college. Inside, there's the Treasures Room with its medical, surgical and silver collections, the apothecary jar collection, anatomical tables, the Censors Room and the Dorchester Library. The whole thing runs from 5.30pm to 8pm on Thursday 5 November at 11 St Andrews Place, NW1 4LE, and entry is free with registration.