Striving to do Good Things: Teaching Humanities in Canadian Medical Schools

We provide the results of a systematic key-informant review of medical humanities curricula at fourteen of Canada's seventeen medical schools. This survey was the first of its kind. We found a wide diversity of views among medical educators as to what constitutes the medical humanities, and a lack of consensus on how best to train medical students in the field. In fact, it is not clear that consensus has been attempted - or is even desirable - given that Canadian medical humanities programs are largely shaped by individual educators' interests, experience and passions. This anarchic approach to teaching the medical humanities contrasts sharply with teaching in the clinical sciences where national accreditation processes attempt to ensure that doctors graduating from different schools have roughly the same knowledge (or at least have passed the same exams). We argue that medical humanities are marginalized in Canadian curricula because they are considered to be at odds philosophically with the current dominant culture of evidence-based medicine (EBM). In such a culture where adhering to a consensual standard is a measure of worth, the medical humanities - which defy easy metrical appraisal - are vulnerable. We close with a plea for medical education to become more comfortable in the borderlands between EBM and humanities approaches.     

Innovation Through Tradition: Rediscovering the “Humanist” in the Medical Humanities

Throughout its fifty-year history, the role of the medical humanist and even the name “medical humanities” has remained raw, dynamic and contested. What do we mean when we call ourselves “humanists” and our practice “medical humanities?” To address these questions, we turn to the concept of origin narratives. After explaining the value of these stories, we focus on one particularly rich origin narrative of the medical humanities by telling the story of how a group of educators, ethicists, and scholars struggling to define their relatively new field rediscovered the studia humanitatis, a Renaissance curriculum for learning and teaching. Our origin narrative is composed of two intertwined stories—the history of the studia humanitatis itself and the story of the scholars who rediscovered it. We argue that as an origin narrative the studia humanitatis grounds the medical humanities as both an engaged moral practice and pedagogical project. In the latter part of the paper, we use this origin narrative to show how medical humanists working in translational science can use their understanding of their historical roots to do meaningful work in the world.     

The educational philosophies behind the medical humanities programs in the United States: An empirical assessment of three different approaches to humanistic medical education

This study investigates the three major educational philosophies behind the medical humanities programs in the United States. It summarizes the characteristics of the Cultural Transmission Approach, the Affective Developmental Approach, and the Cognitive Developmental Approach. A questionnaire was sent to 415 teachers of medical humanities asking for their perceptions of the amount of time and effort devoted by their programs to these three philosophical approaches. The 234 responses constituted a 54.6% return. The approximately 80:20 gender ratio of males to females and other demographic data on age and educational background were consistent with other studies of the field of medical humanities. Reflections on the results in Table II indicate that some changes need to take place in the teaching of the medical humanities if the perceived ideal is to be achieved. In order for the current teachers of the medical humanities to think that the appropriate philosophies behind the teaching of the medical humanities are being implemented as they should be, much less time and effort need to be devoted to the Cultural Transmission Approach. With no other published reports on the educational philosophies behind the medical humanities programs, this study created a new knowledge base about this relatively young and rapidly emerging field.     

将医学人文课程的教学目标落到实处

教学目标是教学的统帅和灵魂,具有导向、评价、调节、激励等多方面的功能。医学人文素质教育之所以处地乏力状态,很大程度上是没有将医学人文课程的教学目标落到实处。为改变医学人文课程教学乏力的状态,提高教学效果,有必要加强教学目标、教学内容、教学策略、教学资源、教学评价几方面的工作,将医学人文课程的教学目标落到实处。     

性别的社会性约束与可持续发展

临床医学生人文教育不能模糊医学人文知识和医学人文精神两个不同的概念,需要科学精神和人文精神的辩证统一。临床医学人文教育理论与实践的分离,临床医学人文教学与临床医学专业教学的分离,临床医学人文教育目标、实现途径和评价体系的不确定性,使临床医学生难敌市场经济功利性的负面导引,医学模式的转换在教育层面受阻。     

See me,hear me: Using film in health-care classes

This essay argues that film deserves a place within the medical humanities curriculum and demonstrates effective strategies for employing it within medical ethics and humanities classrooms. Part One of the article emphasizes how and why medical ethics teachers can utilize documentary and fictional films, such as “Thomas Szasz and the Myth of Mental Illness,” “The Deadly Deception,”Whose Life Is It Anyway? and “Voices From the Front” in their courses. Such films encourage students to move beyond abstract debates and confront the human pain inherent in all ethical dilemmas. Part Two focuses on documentary and fiction film in the medical humanities classroom. In this section, the author details how to incorporates films, such asThe Doctor, The Waterdance andHospital, into the humanities classroom, juxtaposing them with various literary works, such asOther Women's Children, Borrowed Time, andCeremony. Part Three of the essay presents a detailed discussion ofThe Elephant Man andFrankenstein, illustrating how visual and literary texts compliment each other within the humanities classroom. Overall, the author demonstrates how films function as engaging and complex visual texts providing unique insights in the particularities of American health care and, as such, can become valuable components within medical ethics and humanities classrooms.     

Accuracy, confidence, and calibration: how young children and adults assess credibility

Do children and adults use the same cues to judge whether someone is a reliable source of information? In 4 experiments, we investigated whether children (ages 5 and 6) and adults used information regarding accuracy, confidence, and calibration (i.e., how well an informant's confidence predicts the likelihood of being correct) to judge informants' credibility. We found that both children and adults used information about confidence and accuracy to judge credibility; however, only adults used information about informants' calibration. Adults discredited informants who exhibited poor calibration, but children did not. Requiring adult participants to complete a secondary task while evaluating informants' credibility impaired their ability to make use of calibration information. Thus, children and adults may differ in how they infer credibility because of the cognitive demands of using calibration.     

The Medical Humanities Today: Humane Health Care or Tool of Governance?

The medical humanities have been presented as a panacea for medical reductionism; a means for 'humanizing' medicine. However, there is a lack of consensus about the appropriate contributing disciplines and how curricula should be taught and assessed. This special issue critically examines the role of the medical humanities in medical education and their potential to serve, inadvertently or otherwise, as a tool of governance. The contributors, who include medical educators and medical practitioners, employ a range of perspectives for analysing the pertinent issues.     

Medical Humanities Teaching in North American Allopathic and Osteopathic Medical Schools

Although the AAMC requires annual reporting of medical humanities teaching, most literature is based on single-school case reports and studies using information reported on schools’ websites. This study sought to discover what medical humanities is offered in North American allopathic and osteopathic undergraduate medical schools. An 18-question, semi-structured survey was distributed to all 146 (as of June 2016) member schools of the American Association of Medical Colleges and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. The survey sought information on required and elective humanities content, hours of humanities instruction, types of disciplines, participation rates, and humanities administrative structure. The survey was completed by 134 schools (145 AAMC; 31 AACOM). 70.8% of schools offered required and 80.6% offered electives in humanities. Global health and writing were the most common disciplines. Schools required 43.9 mean (MD 45.4; DO 37.1) and 30 (MD 29; DO 37.5) median hours in humanities. In the first two years, most humanities are integrated into other course work; most electives are offered as stand-alone classes. 50.0% of schools report only 0-25% of students participating in humanities electives. Presence of a certificate, concentration or arts journal increased likelihood of humanities content but decreased mean hours. Schools with a medical humanities MA had a higher number of required humanities hours. Medical humanities content in undergraduate curriculum is lower than is indicated in the AAMC annual report. Schools with a formal structure have a greater humanities presence in the curriculum and are taken by more students.     

论新时期医学院校人文学科建设

加强医学人文学科建设是全面推进素质教育、培养创新精神的重要内容,也是深化医学教育改革步伐的重要举措.医学院校开展医学人文教育教学真正目的是进一步优化高等医学院校人才培养模式,使医学人文学科知识内化为医学生的人文思想和人文精神.     

The pedagogy of two different approaches to humanistic medical education: Cognitive vs affective

The enormous growth in medical humanities programs during the past decade has resulted in an extensive literature concerning the content of the discipline and the issues that have been addressed. Comparatively little attention, however, has been devoted to the structure of the discipline of medical humanities concerning the process or the theoretical aspects of the pedagogy of teaching the discipline. This report explicitly addresses the pedagogical aspects of the discipline by comparing and contrasting two different basic approaches to the discipline referred to as the classical humanities approach and the humanistic psychology approach which roughly approximate the cognitive and affective approaches respectively. These two approaches are compared and contrasted in terms of their goals, objectives, methods of implementation, philosophical assumptions and evaluational techniques.     

Commentary: Moral growth in medical students

Knight has shown how the moral growth of medical students involves a spiritual journey. He may, however, present too sanguine a portrayal of the extent to which the medical education environment promotes this moral and spiritual growth. Medical school may indeed be more abusive than supportive. Admitting more women to medical school and teaching more humanities courses, while worthwhile, will not necessarily promote the goals that Knight appropriately advocates.     

浅谈医学文化中的人文精神培养

20世纪以来,传统医学教育在指导思想上、教育理论上和实践中人文精神存在不足。这是由于长期以来我国的医学教育过分注重医学生的专业知识教育而忽视人文素质教育,专业知识与人文精神分离的结果。因此,着重从医学文化的角度去思考医学的本质和目的,探讨在医学教育中加强人文精神的培养。     

Toward an Aesthetic Medicine: Developing a Core Medical Humanities Undergraduate Curriculum

The medical humanities are often implemented in the undergraduate medicine curriculum through injection of discrete option courses as compensation for an overdose of science. The medical humanities may be reformulated as process and perspective, rather than content, where the curriculum is viewed as an aesthetic text and learning as aesthetic and ethical identity formation. This article suggests that a "humanities" perspective may be inherent to the life sciences required for study of medicine. The medical humanities emerge as a revelation of value inherent to an aesthetic medicine taught and learned imaginatively.     

Cerebellar Creativity: Abstraction of Mental Movements

Encouraging students' interdisciplinary thinking may be a key element in facilitating their creativity. In this article, I describe a case report involving teaching styles and assignments designed to teach psychology from a more interdisciplinary perspective. I present examples illustrating how the arts and humanities can enrich psychology and vice versa, and I report students' responses to the interdisciplinary approach.     

扬弃与超越——医学人文教育的重新审视与思考

目前,医学人文教育依然存在诸多问题。通过对医学人文教育现状的审视,追根溯源,重新认识人文教育的内涵,并就认识取向、课程体系、教学模式、评价方法、专业教育与人文教育的关系等方面的障碍或弊端提出扬弃与改革措施。     

Practices of Looking and the Medical Humanities: Imagining the Unborn in France, 1550–1800

Visuality is a concept used to study vision as an historically and culturally specific activity. Curriculum in the medical humanities could address visuality by stressing how different kinds of practitioners and peoples learn how to see. This paper introduces the visual training promoted by the discipline of art history, analysing early modern French medical images of the unborn as a case study. The goal is to encourage medical practitioners to reflect on their own visual skills, comparing and contrasting them with the visual methodologies of art history.     

The Sikh faith and its encounter with the humanities within the contemporary secular university*

This article is an exploration of contemporary themes within the humanities and how they apply within the context of teaching the Sikh Faith within the contemporary secular University. It explores the contemporary crisis within the humanities and in a critical engagement with Edward Said's notion of secular criticism it offers a different perspective which is located within a notion of Sikh ethics.     

医学人文运动与知识考古--中国人文医学的战略与策略

后现代理论影响和刺激了医学人文学,医学人文学学科意义与价值更加显明,医学需要人文学,人文学需要医学,医务人员迫切需要人文医学教育。经济发展、高新生命科学技术入驻世俗生活、医学模式转变、医疗改革与价值论哲学影响,这五大因素构成中国医学人文运动的背景;中国医学人文运动正在兴起。研究医学人文学的知识背景对制订人文医学战略与策略有重要意义。