John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Sciences
- Corporate body
- 1996-
The Health Museum started out as a series of health exhibits proposed in the wake of the 1962 “Victory Over Polio” mass-immunization campaign. The exhibits opened in 1969 within the Museum of Natural Science. The Museum of Health and Medical Science reopened in 1996 in its own building and was renamed the John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Science in 2001 following a bequest from the McGovern Foundation. The Museum has expanded several times and now features a 4D theater (2008) and the DeBakey Cell Lab, the first bilingual science laboratory museum in the US. In 2017 it became the first Smithsonian affiliate in the Houston Museum District.