Vital Signs Conference Paper
Date: 15 October 2009
Speaker: Dr Peter Jordan
Title of presentation:Brief discussion paper on Medical Humanities
After several conferences on medical humanities, and surveying the literature of the past two decades, I gain the impression that there are a variety of interpretations of the topic. Some institutions provide medical students with phenomenological insights into the experience of illness and death by considerations drawn from striking examples from literature and the visual arts. Others offer a history of medicine per se, and consider its development with respect to social history. Others focus on the legal and ethical issues associated with current medical practice.
In order to stimulate discussion on this topic, it might be useful to summarise the findings of research carried out recently in Canada, by Professor James Connor and a colleague from the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University, St Johns, Newfoundland. Their paper provides the results of a systematic key-informant review of medical humanities curricula, established in Canada since 1998, at fourteen of Canada’s seventeen medical schools.
The authors note a lack of consensus into what constitutes medical humanities. They identify a highly idiosyncratic and anarchical approach to the subject ‘largely shaped by individual educators’ interests, experiences and passions and a wide range of curricula, with only the University of Manitoba offering a non-elective programme. Clinicians are involved in teaching medical humanities in eleven of the fourteen responding institutions, but there is a lack of dedicated teaching posts in medical humanities. It is suggested that one reason for this is that science faculties are reluctant to lose dedicated time for the teaching of ‘core’ studies. This contrasts with a more uniform approach to the teaching of clinical sciences. The authors argue that medical humanities are marginalised in Canadian curricula because, ‘they are considered to be at odds philosophically with the current dominant culture of evidence-based medicine.’ They note that in this situation, medical humanities, which are not conducive to metrical appraisal, are vulnerable.
The authors argue however that the recent move to a more patient-centred approach to medical practice does favours the development of medical humanities. Whilst acknowledging that there is no ‘strong evidence’ that the study of medical humanities makes a better doctor, the authors’ claim that without it, “Medical School can wither the muscles of empathy and compassion in even the most ‘toned’ idealist.”
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Vital Signs / Conference paper / 15.10.09