The precarious position of the medical humanities in the medical school curriculum

Abstract

The author contends that bioethics, as currently conceived and taught in most medical schools across the country, should neither be considered as part of nor substituted for the humanities within the curriculum. Arguing that bioethics has evolved into a discipline dominated by rules--which has tilted it more toward scientific methods of reasoning--the author asserts that literature and the fine arts maintain a more humanistic approach rather than focusing on abstract principles. Consequently, the medical humanities and bioethics represent valuable but distinctly different ways of analyzing information, viewing the world, confronting dilemmas, and teaching students. The author stresses both the affective and the cognitive skills gained from incorporating the humanities formally within a medical education environment and shows how including literature and the fine arts emphasizes medicine as a profession rather than merely a trade. Incorporating these disciplines legitimizes individual questioning and collective probing that, in turn, motivate practitioners and students to confront fundamental questions about both their chosen field and their particular places within it. Thus, within the required educational curriculum structured discussions exploring a broad range of medical humanities can play a crucial role that can be neither emulated nor replicated by studying bioethics. Including the medical humanities as part of health care professional's basic training remains pivotal in helping to shape his or her future, both as a compassionate practitioner and as a reflective human being.