Integrating the humanities into medical education
Hand and Leaf Vasculature, by Ryan James Bender
At the AAMC annual meeting this year, I attended a session put on by two faculty members from the Anschutz School of Medicine at the University of Colorado in Denver. They were discussing the integration of humanities education into their med school curiculum: the required and elective courses, sample lesson plans, and examples of the students' writings and projects. My interest in this topic was twofold: first, I have a personal love for the arts and humanities; and second, I had never heard of a med student who would gladly and gratefully take a required art, film or creative writing course. But they convinced me that such students exist, and that they are both talented and prolific!
Many of the lesson plans discussed had only peripherally to do with medicine; but instead focused on teaching the students how to deal with difficult emotions, how to craft quality narration and self expression, how to continue to develop their imaginations well into adulthood, and how to craft a set of core values based in humanism and compassion. When framed in that way, how could anyone doubt that the humanities have a place in health care? At its core, medicine is the interaction of two or more humans, with the goal of health or healing. A more human experience can scarcely be imagined, and the in-depth exploration of the intellectual, emotional and creative facets of that experience should not be ignored.
You can read a summary of the Anschutz Humanities program here. Some other links worth checking out:
- Some examples of stories written by Anschutz med students, based on their Anatomy course cadaver as "first teacher"
- An open lecture series involving the arts in medicine
- The school publishes a journal entitled the Journal of Medical Humanities, which you can read online
- They publish an annual curated anthology of medicine-related art and writing
- The medical school library includes a collection of medical humanities books and film
- Lists of the elective and required humanities courses
As a patient, I would be pleased to find a doctor who had studied this kind of curriculum in medical school, and if I knew there were a number of humanities-oriented doctors out there, I may even seek them out. I can imagine that a physician who thinks about patients and medicine in this way would be an innovative, creative and thoughtful provider.
