This engaging and fully resourced GCSE History lesson explores the roles of physicians, apothecaries and barber surgeons in medieval medicine. Students investigate how medical care worked in the Middle Ages, examining the different training, responsibilities and status of each type of practitioner.

The lesson is framed around the enquiry question:

“Were medieval doctors skilled professionals or dangerous guessers?”

Through a range of interactive activities, students uncover how medieval medicine operated as a hierarchy of medical roles, while also exploring the tensions between practitioners and the limitations created by beliefs such as the Theory of the Four Humours.

The lesson includes:

• A curiosity-driven register task introducing medieval barber surgeons
• A statement sorting activity where students classify evidence about physicians, apothecaries and barber surgeons
• Discussion activities exploring professional tensions and rivalries in medieval medicine
• A short video task on barber surgeons with accompanying true/false questions
• A fast-paced image-based plenary recap reinforcing key concepts

All worksheets, card-sorting statements, and tasks are included within the slides, along with detailed slide-by-slide teacher notes.

This lesson is designed for Edexcel GCSE Medicine Through Time, but can be easily adapted for AQA, OCR, or KS3 medieval medicine units.

Students develop key historical skills including evidence interpretation, explanation, comparison, and evaluative judgement, while building a clear understanding of how medical care functioned in the medieval world.