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Visualising illness
Published in Chinmay Murali, Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Infertility Comics and Graphic Medicine, 2021
Chinmay Murali, Sathyaraj Venkatesan
In recent years, medical humanities have evolved beyond medical schools and medical education, seen in the emergence of health humanities, a broader interdisciplinary academic field that subsumes health, medicine, and the arts. Craig Klugman defines health humanities thus:The health humanities [is] … an interdisciplinary field concerned with understanding the human condition of health and illness in order to create knowledgeable and sensitive health care providers, patients, and family caregivers. As a field (meaning a focus of study rather than a disciplinary method), the health humanities draws on the methodologies of the humanities and social sciences to provide insight, understanding, and meaning to people facing illness including professional care providers, lay care providers, patients, policy-makers and others concerned with the suffering of humans.(Klugman 2017, 421–422)
Health humanities
Published in Alan Bleakley, Routledge handbook of the medical humanities, 2019
Health humanities champion the application of the arts and humanities in interdisciplinary research, education and social action to inform and transform health and social care, health and wellbeing. It is driven by the needs of the general public and their sense of what does them good. It aims to be inclusive of viewpoints and contributions from within and beyond medicine; value the experiences and resources of the public; explore diverse approaches to achieving, maintaining or recovering quality of life; and strives for demonstrable impacts, not least in providing new evidence and insights for the education or practices of those planning, organising or working for the health of any population.
Dementia narratives and beyond
Published in Rebecca A. Bitenc, Reconsidering Dementia Narratives, 2019
In this book, I hope to have outlined a framework for a narrativist approach to issues in the health humanities which apart from being applied to current and future dementia narratives might be adapted to other contexts and contents. Questions of identity and the problems of care arise in connection with any serious illness. I suggest that these issues might be approached through a literary medical humanities methodology that draws on the tools and insight of contemporary narrative studies. Simultaneously, critical literary medical humanities delineate not only the potential but also the limitations of narrative in the context of an ethically driven health humanities agenda. Narratives are neither the be-all and end-all of identity construction, or the creation of empathic relations, nor are they simply tools of evil, dehumanising, neo-liberal agendas. However, dementia narratives are entangled with wider cultural narratives about empathy, identity, and care—how we come to care, who we care for, and why we care. As such, they have much to tell us about what it means to be human, that is, interdependent beings who live in relationships of care.
The art of seeing: The impact of a visual arts course on medical student wellbeing
Published in Medical Teacher, 2023
Ariella R. Noorily, Anne Willieme, Mikaela Belsky, Katie Grogan
For years, medical schools have been exploring various ways to promote wellbeing and mitigate burnout. In December 2020, the AAMC published a landmark report entitled ‘The Fundamental Role of the Arts and Humanities in Medical Education,’ which outlines the importance of integrating the humanities into medical education. Specifically, the report states that arts and humanities courses—including those that focus on literature, dance, writing, theater, music, and visual arts—can help students and physicians develop personal insight into their own behaviors and feelings, which can support wellbeing (Howley and King 2020). A 2018 study of five US medical schools corroborates this theory, showing that students who are exposed to more arts and humanities during their medical training show fewer signs of burnout (Mangione et al. 2018). In addition, a 2021 review of humanities in medical education included ‘personal wellness and self-care’ as one of six foci for health humanities education (Carr et al. 2021).
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.
Narrowing the physiotherapy knowledge-practice gap: faculty training beyond the health sciences
Published in Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 2023
Sarah M. Schwab, Valéria Andrade, Tarcísio Santos Moreira, James T. Cavanaugh, Daniela V. Vaz, Paula L. Silva
Postprofessional training of physiotherapy faculty in the liberal arts, humanities (Blanton et al., 2020; Klugman, 2017), social sciences, and natural sciences (Fox, 2008) or a different applied or technical discipline (e.g. engineering) may be one step to move the profession forward and help bridge the knowledge-practice gap. Health humanities (e.g. philosophy, bioethics, and history) is one area that has recently received increased attention in physiotherapy education (Blanton et al., 2020). More widespread integration of health humanities may facilitate critical reading, problem-solving, writing and reflection, and clinical observation (Klugman, 2017). Qualitative methods from the humanities are valuable in attaining a first-hand perspective of the disability experience that can be informative for practice (e.g. Alshammari, 2019; Forber-Pratt and Zape, 2017; Leo and Goodwin, 2016; Schiariti et al., 2014). Qualitative work suggests that individuals with disability are often subject to ableist norms that emphasize the individual as the source of disability and conceal the cultural, societal, and environmental sources, which is consistent with the mechanistic perspective. Blanton et al. (2020) recommended integrating health humanities with existing course content and including faculty with expertise in the humanities to guide this integration.