Who we are: The political origins of the medical humanities

The medical humanities were organized, beginning in the late 1960s, by a small group of people who shared a critique of medical education and a commitment to vigorous action to change it. They proposed to create several demonstration programs in humanities education at American schools. Although the group began with a religious orientation, it soon acquired a broader, more secular mission. As a result of shrewd political organizing, the group attracted members from within medicine, and was awarded a grant to promote the medical humanities. This paper describes these events and sets them in the context of the social and medical history of the 1960s and early 1970s.