Science taught. Care assumed.

The frustration surfaced early, making it hard to ignore.

Healthcare is often discussed as if it’s mostly scientific and clinical - measurable, provable, teachable. But anyone working within it knows that’s only part of the story. The rest lies in relationships, judgment, communication, and uncertainty. Yet, medical education hardly addresses this.

That gap became the founding question for unMedical School:

“Only 20% of healthcare is scientific and clinical, and medical schools only teach that part - where do we learn the rest?”

What followed wasn’t a plan or a programme, but a series of conversations. Conversations among people who shared the same unease: clinicians, designers, educators, system thinkers. People who sensed something essential was being missed but didn’t yet know how to name it.

From the start, unMedical School resisted the typical “school” format. No curriculum to deliver. No hierarchy of expertise. Instead, learning replaced teaching. The word school became a collective noun - a gathering of people committed to engaging, listening, and thinking together about health and healthcare from different angles.

This was the space we were invited into.

As designers, we’re often brought in late - once the problem has been defined, once the solution has already been framed. Usually, to “make it clearer” or “make it look better”. But this felt different. We were invited into the conversation itself, early enough to help question the assumptions beneath it.

That really mattered to us because design, at its best, isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about how people experience systems. How meaning is made. How different perspectives clash and reveal what’s been taken for granted. Designers notice things others have learned to ignore.

Our role within unMedical School wasn’t to lead, fix, or formalise. It was to listen, reflect back, challenge gently, and help shape a shared language as it developed. Alongside the other regular contributors, we helped create the identity and shape the offer - but more importantly, we became part of an ongoing dialogue about what healthcare could be if more of its human complexity was recognised.

Through those conversations, something shifted. The question ceased to be “how do we teach the missing 80%?” and became “how do we create spaces where it can be explored together?” The answer wasn’t another framework, but a different stance: curiosity over certainty, participation over instruction.

Momentum built on clarity. unMedical School began to take shape not as an institution, but as a living entity - sustained by the people who show up, the questions they bring, and the conversations they’re willing to stay in.

Design didn’t sit alongside healthcare in this work. It became part of how healthcare was thought about from the very beginning.

The school is currently on summer break. But the conversations haven’t ended - they’ve simply paused. And when the doors reopen in September, we’ll be back at the table, ready to listen, question, and learn again.