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Visualising illness
Published in Chinmay Murali, Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Infertility Comics and Graphic Medicine, 2021
Chinmay Murali, Sathyaraj Venkatesan
Though related interdisciplinary approaches that link healthcare and the arts, medical humanities and health humanities differ in their focus: while medical humanities deploy humanities content as a valuable tool in medical education and practice in order to enhance the “doctoring” skills in physicians, health humanities situate “the humanities, arts, and social sciences in the centre, rather than as an add-on to clinical and basic sciences” (Klugman and Lamb 2019, 3). Put differently, “a key task of this emerging field of enquiry is to breakdown the artificial boundaries between the arts and biomedical science to identify mutually beneficial fields of study” (Crawford et al. 2015, 18).
Dissonance
Published in Hilary Moss, Music and Creativity in Healthcare Settings, 2021
Studying the humanities is valuable, but not always in the way some medical humanities scholars claim, such as causing ‘remedial humanisation’ or making doctors into better people (Stempsey 1999; Shapiro and Rucker 2003; O’Neill et al. 2016; Moss and O’Neill 2012; Koschorke 2018). An over focus on ‘highbrow’ literature in medical humanities ignores the learning (and fun) to be gained from other branches of the humanities (Crawford 2015; Crawford et al. 2020; O’Neill et al. 2020).
Aesthetics
Published in Alan Bleakley, Medical Education, Politics and Social Justice, 2020
Evaluation studies show that medical humanities in the medicine curriculum play an important role in shaping doctors as meta-learners, or good at learning how to learn, how to tolerate ambiguity, and how to collaborate (Bleakley 2015, 2019, 2020a). These are essentially the capabilities needed for effective participation in a democracy. As noted, issues of social justice have recently become a major focus for the medical or health humanities, debating the parameters of “humane” medical practice. Given that the aim of the humanities is to explore and expand what it is to be human, and that the arts do not merely embellish but also critically interrogate this, it is no wonder that the medical humanities provide a point of engagement with social justice issues in medical education.
Exploration and practice of humanistic education for medical students based on volunteerism
Published in Medical Education Online, 2023
Lizhi Chen, Jiayi Zhang, Yingjun Zhu, Jie Shan, Luxian Zeng
Real, independent, participatory experiences and opportunities to address issues that arise during medical humanistic education can better contribute to medical students’ understanding of medical humanities and thus to the development of medical humanistic education [15]. This is why teaching in a way that allows students to feel more involved has greater value. Many teaching methods are included in the University of California, San Francisco’s humanistic education program that is worth considering. Students can participate in a humanistic book club for a spiritual feast, a medical humanistic interest group for mutual self-improvement, and multiple peer-group seminars for independent or supervised learning. Overall, the humanistic curriculum in U.S. medical schools has five characteristics (Figure 1): randomness, effectiveness, flexibility, intersectionality, and continuity [11]. In China, current medical students do not lack a sense of morality, ethical awareness, and responsibility; they lack basic humanistic competencies such as empathy, compassion, and communication skills and should therefore receive complimentary humanistic education. At the national level, there is a need to break away from traditional teaching methods and adopt novel ones to improve their effectiveness [16,17].
Variation in medical humanities program mission statements in United States and Canadian Medical Schools
Published in Medical Teacher, 2023
Zoe M. Adams, Kedous Mekbib, John Encandela, Anna Reisman
The field of medical humanities is difficult to define due to its interdisciplinary nature—it comprises subjects and curricular initiatives in the humanities, social sciences, visual and performing arts. Originating in the United States in the 1960s as a response to the ‘dehumanization’ and increasing biomedicalization of the medical establishment, the medical humanities sought to remind medical practitioners of the ‘human values’ integral to the practice of healing (Warner 2011). In 2017, some scholars issued a call to rename the field ‘health humanities’ to emphasize that ‘medicine is only a minor determinant of health in human populations alongside social and cultural factors’ (Jones et al. 2017). In a field so diverse, it is difficult to organize around a set of consistent missions or values across medical schools.
Humanities and GP training: the perception of GP trainers towards using medical humanities to teach GP trainees primary care
Published in Education for Primary Care, 2023
The RCGP curriculum states that GP trainees should learn in a variety of ways such as ‘exploring medical humanities literature as this provides an essential opportunity for reflective practice’ [12]. However, detailed guidance in how this can be achieved is absent. Medical humanities can be used to teach holistic patient care, communication skills, reflection, empathy as well as a myriad of other topics [1]. This study demonstrates that experience and personal interest in medical humanities can give GP trainers the confidence to use it. Individual GP trainer preference determines the modality (i.e. art, music, film or literature) by which humanities is included in GP training. The use of medical humanities can help the wellbeing of GPs and GP trainees. It can help build doctor-patient relationship by advancing communication skills, reflection and empathy.