March 19, 2026
Thom Carroll/For PhillyVoice
The Mütter Museum’s upcoming workshop will use medical artifacts to help visitors imagine real-life experiences from the past.
The Mütter Museum will offer a different way to experience its famously unusual collection next month by asking visitors to imagine the stories behind it.
“Time Travel with Collections,” part of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia’s Radbill Lecture series, is scheduled for Thursday, April 2, from 6-8 p.m.
Instead of a traditional lecture, the event will be structured as a hands-on workshop. Attendees will use items from the museum’s collection, including wax medical models and historical instruments, as prompts to picture what it may have been like to experience illness and treatment in the past.
Led by Senior Director of Collections Erin McLeary and Senior Director of Interpretation Sara Ray, the session will guide participants through exercises focused on historical empathy, or understanding how people in different time periods thought, felt and made decisions based on the knowledge available to them.
Attendees will be encouraged to interpret objects from multiple perspectives and consider how medical history unfolded in ways that were not always straightforward or recorded. The workshop will also include short, guided writing exercises inspired by the artifacts.
Tickets are $15 and registration is required.
Thursday, April 2, from 6-8 p.m.
Mütter Museum
19 S. 22nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Registration required
Tickets: $15
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