University of Queensland Mayne Medical School, Heritage-listed medical school building in Herston, Brisbane, Australia.
The University of Queensland Mayne Medical School is a three-storey red face-brick building in a Renaissance idiom at 288 Herston Road, Herston, on a ridge beside the Royal Brisbane Hospital and overlooking Victoria Park. It houses the Marks-Hirschfeld Museum of Medical History, a volunteer-run collection of over 7,000 medical and surgical instruments and memorabilia.
The Medical School was built from 1938 to 1939 and opened by Premier William Forgan Smith on 11 August 1939. Its creation followed decades of lobbying by Brisbane Hospital staff and the British Medical Association, and the Forgan Smith Government funded it as part of a Depression-era public works programme. The building was designed by Raymond Clare Nowland of the Department of Public Works.
The Marks-Hirschfeld Museum inside the building displays medical instruments and objects from Queensland's healthcare history. Visitors who walk through it can see how medical practice in the region changed from one generation to the next.
The building sits in the Herston health precinct and is easy to reach from central Brisbane. It is worth checking in advance which areas are open to the public, as not all parts of the school are freely accessible.
The Mayne siblings, who funded the school's construction, lived as very private people in Brisbane and were barely known to the public during their lifetimes. The fact that one of the city's main medical training centres bears their name comes as a surprise to many visitors.
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