scholarly journals On the arts and humanities in medical education

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle G. Rabinowitz

AbstractThis paper aims to position the birth of the Medical Humanities movement in a greater historical context of twentieth century American medical education and to paint a picture of the current landscape of the Medical Humanities in medical training. It first sheds light on the model of medical education put forth by Abraham Flexner through the publishing of the 1910 Flexner Report, which set the stage for defining physicians as experimentalists and rooting the profession in research institutions. While this paved the way for medical advancements, it came at the cost of producing a patriarchal approach to medical practice. By the late 1960s, the public persona of the profession was thus devoid of humanism. This catalyzed the birth of the Medical Humanities movement that helped lay the framework for what has perpetuated as the ongoing incorporation of humanistic subjects into medical training. As we enter a time in medicine in which rates of burnout are ever-increasing and there are growing concerns about a concomitant reduction in empathy among trainees, the need for instilling humanism remains important. We must consequently continue to consider how to ensure the place of the Medical Humanities in medical education moving forward.

Author(s):  
Anna Skorzewska ◽  
Allan D. Peterkin

This introductory chapter provides a short history of medical humanities and continues on to give an overview of the limits of medical practice, evidence-based medicine (EBM), successes and failures, curricula, and the current state of medical humanities. The medical and health humanities have become a widespread discipline, with journals, institutes, and associations worldwide. Throughout undergraduate medical education, new courses, electives, programs, and research are proliferating. Yet there is very little officially documented about relevance and efficacy in postgraduate medical education. The chapters that follow provide both a rigorous argument for using the arts and humanities in postgraduate medical education and a practical “how-to” that will guide readers in developing arts and humanities initiatives in their own program or medical school. Each chapter provides ideas, hands-on lesson plans, and resources to pave the way forward.


Author(s):  
Alexander Kiss ◽  
Claudia Steiner

The University of Basel, Switzerland has developed a longitudinal medical humanities curriculum based on illness narratives and narrative medicine. The ultimate learning goal of medical humanities as taught in Basel is to foster narrative competence. A good doctor needs to be a good listener, a good storyteller, and should ideally be able to co-create an illness narrative together with a patient. Medical humanities consist of mandatory and optional elements. Blending evidence-based medicine, which is based on larger numbers of patients with similar characteristics, with narrative-based medicine, which is based on patients’ uniqueness, this programme provides medical students with the opportunity to develop and practice narrative medicine over the course of the six years of medical studies. This chapter discusses the programme and its place in medical education.


Author(s):  
Allan D. Peterkin ◽  
Anna Skorzewska

Arts and humanities education is widespread in undergraduate but almost nonexistent in postgraduate medical education where it is arguably more helpful. This book fills that gap. It covers a wide range of arts and humanities subjects including film, theatre, narrative, visual art, history, ethics, and social sciences. Each chapter provides not only 1) a literature review of the relevant subject in postgraduate medical education and, where helpful, undergraduate medical education but 2) a theoretical discussion of the subject as it relates to medicine and medical education 3) challenges to implementing arts and humanities programming and 4) appendices with a number of different and relevant resources as well as sample lesson plans. There is a chapter on the use of humanities in interprofessional education, a domain whose importance has recently gained prominence. Finally there are also chapters guiding the medical humanities educator on evaluating the impact of their programs, an ever-present challenge, and on the thorny issue of how to fund programs in medical humanities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (6) ◽  
pp. 1865-1869 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Skorton

The nature of work is changing rapidly in the digital age, increasing the demand for skills in specific disciplines. Across the United States and beyond, this evolution has led to an increased emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at every level. Meanwhile, at US institutions of higher education, the proportion of undergraduate students who earn a degree in the humanities is declining. However, while the public discussion often pits the disciplines against one another, the sciences, arts, and humanities are—as Albert Einstein once wrote—“branches of the same tree” [(2006)The Einstein Reader]. They are mutually reinforcing. Therefore, the best way to prepare the next generation for the future of work, life, and citizenship is to provide broad, holistic educational experiences that integrate the STEM disciplines with the arts and humanities. A new study from the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine bolsters the case for such an approach, finding considerable evidence that the mutual integration of disciplines leads to improved educational and career outcomes for undergraduate and graduate students.


Author(s):  
William F Laughey ◽  
Jane Atkinson ◽  
Alison M Craig ◽  
Laura Douglas ◽  
Megan EL Brown ◽  
...  

Abstract Context Medical education is committed to teaching patient centred communication and empathy. However, quantitative research suggests empathy scores tend to decline as students progress through medical school. In qualitative terms, there is a need to better understand how students and tutors view the practice and teaching of clinical empathy and the phenomenon of empathic erosion. Methods Working within a constructivist paradigm, researchers thematically analysed the individual interview data from a purposive sample of 13 senior students and 9 tutors. Results The four major themes were as follows: (1) ‘the nature of empathy’, including the concept of the innate empathy that students already possess at the beginning of medical school; (2) ‘beyond the formal curriculum’ and the central importance of role modelling; (3) ‘the formal curriculum and the tick-box influence of assessments’; and (4) the ‘durability of empathy’, including ethical erosion and resilience. A garden model of empathy development is proposed — beginning with the innate seeds of empathy that students bring to medical school, the flowering of empathy is a fragile process, subject to both enablers and barriers in the formal, informal, and hidden curricula. Conclusion This study provides insights into empathic erosion in medical school, including the problems of negative role modelling and the limitations of an assessment system that rewards ‘tick-box’ representations of empathy, rather than true acts of compassion. It also identifies factors that should enable the flowering of empathy, such as new pedagogical approaches to resilience and a role for the arts and humanities.


Author(s):  
Thomas Neville Bonner

The changes under way in medical training in the transatlantic world by 1830 owed much to the political and social transformations of the preceding half-century. The political revolutions of the old century, which ushered in a long period of turmoil and conflict, had been followed by a period in the early nineteenth century of reaction and consolidation, new industrial growth and the spread of cities, commercial expansion and rising prosperity, and a high degree of political turbulence in every country. No nation escaped the impact of rapid population changes, of buoyant capitalistic enterprise, of the spreading democratic tide, or of the efforts of reformers to help those most adversely affected by the urban-industrial revolution. The training of doctors was inevitably influenced by the rising power of the middle classes in Europe and America as they demanded more medical services and a higher standard of medical competence. The continued growth of industrial cities, notably in Britain, posed serious problems of public health and the medical care of the poor. By 1831, London’s population was already approaching a million and a half, and nearly half the remaining population were now living in towns of more than five thousand. The doctors most in demand in these conditions were those who joined a skill in practical medicine with a knowledge of the new practical sciences. The new studies of science, it was increasingly believed by laypeople, gave the physician a surer command of diagnosis and a better understanding of the disease process, and his practical skills assured the patient of the best possible treatment. Medicine as a practical science, in short, was seen by the public as an important advance over both the old humanistic medicine of the universities and the crude empiricism of the earlier practical schools. The triumph of the clinic and the rise of the new sciences together created a new confidence in medical education. The schools themselves were becoming more alike.


Author(s):  
Anne Whitehead ◽  
Angela Woods

The medical humanities, we claim, names a series of intersections, exchanges and entanglements between the biomedical sciences,1 the arts and humanities, and the social sciences. The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities introduces the ideas, individuals and scholarly approaches that are currently shaping the field. The medical humanities is an area of inquiry that is highly interdisciplinary, rapidly expanding and increasingly globalised. As this Introduction and the chapters that follow demonstrate, ...


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-88
Author(s):  
Alice Anne Eden

This article is a scholarly reflection on a recent collaborative art project entitled Enchanted Community, which took place in Coventry and Leamington, 1 May - 31 July 2017. The project sought to communicate art historical scholarship to the wider community through innovative methods: using art and craft activities combined with education, inter-disciplinary framing and collaborative working. Experiences of communicating art historical research and engaging the public with regard to the themes of art and enchantment were both rewarding and surprising. The article summarises the key aspects of the project: its events, outcomes, challenges and successes including outputs and feedback statements from attendees. The article is framed by a number of scholarly perspectives. I survey historical ideas of art and enchantment which inspired the project. I also consider academic debates concerning outreach, public engagement, community art activities and impact through the arts and humanities. The project provided the opportunity to reflect on these areas of historical scholarship alongside methodological issues while developing pathways and contacts for further activities.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1948 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-227
Author(s):  
PAUL HARPER

The recommendations that federal tax funds be used for the support of pediatric education which were prepared by the Committee for Improvement of Child Health and approved by the Executive Board of the American Academy of Pediatrics are supported with the following reservations: a. The recommendations of the Academy should acknowledge the need to strengthen the entire field of medical education while maintaining the Academy's qualification to speak for the pediatric aspects. b. The recommendations should more clearly emphasize the desirability of extending medical training by an affiliation between outlying hospitals and medical centers. The purpose is more and better training in pediatrics for general practitioners as well as for pediatricians. c. The recommendations should be amended to strengthen the position of the proposed advisory council on medical education and to require that there shall be no interference with academic freedom to develop medical education and to investigate disease.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document