Photos: John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science

While you’ve probably been to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, have you been to the one place in the Museum District where you can walk through a giant colon or dissect a cow eye? We’re talking about the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, known casually as The Health Museum.

“The Amazing Body Gallery is our permanent exhibit; it’s been here since the inception,” says Ella Hohmann, Science Communications Specialist at The Health Museum. “It’s a larger-than-life exhibit of the body, you can crawl through the colon and learn how it works.”

This exhibit, featuring about 30 video and audio kiosks, was the original at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in 1969, when the nonprofit Museum of Medical Science opened there. Other exhibits and outreach programs followed, all with the mission to “foster wonder and curiosity about health, medical science and the human body.” It wasn’t until 1996, after a successful $9.5 million capital campaign, that the museum moved into its own building, the John P. McGovern Building. McGovern, for whom both the building and the museum are named, was an allergist, investor, and philanthropist who died in Houston in 2007.

Photos: John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science

Today, The Health Museum sees more than 100,000 visitors a year. “Plus,” says Hohmann, “we do a lot of on-site events in the community, and engage around seven million visitors on our social media platforms.” Besides exhibits like the Amazing Body Gallery, the museum hosts events from school field trips to Discovery Camps, birthday parties, the DeBakey Cell Lab, where you can gear up with a lab coat, gloves, and goggles to do hands-on experiments, and the Healing Arts, a program that explores the role of health and art.

“But my favorite,” Hohmann says, “and I actually teach some of the classes, are the Doc Dissections where you can dissect an organ with supervision from a doctor and museum educator.” She explains that these are not human organs but cow, pig, and sheep organs that closely resemble human organs. These programs occur on select Saturday afternoons, and you need to go online to sign up and purchase tickets, which are separate from general admission, which is $15 for adults and $12 for seniors and children under 12. But admission is free on Thursdays from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Photos: John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science

Coming up, the museum will host the world premiere of The Journey to End Cancer: From Cause to Cure, presented by the University of Houston M.D. Anerson Cancer Center. The exhibit will explore groundbreaking new research, advanced medical technologies, and promising new therapies.

The museum offers many programs for young people, from grade school kids to older teens, but there is plenty to see and do for adults as well.

As Homann says, health affects everyone.

John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science
1515 Hermann Drive
713.521.1515

by Marene Gustin