MEDICAL HUMANISM. FICTION OR PARADIGM? THE ROLE OF HUMANISM IN THE TRAINING OF PHYSICIANS

Abstract

There is still considerable resistance to accepting that the medical humanities could play an important role as core and integrated provision in an undergraduate medicine curriculum. Sceptics towards this curriculum innovation are usually strong proponents of “evidence-based medicine”, where what count as evidence is constrained by scientific paradigm. Arts practi­tioners and humanities scholars are not used to working within such a paradigm that appears constrictive and theoretical rationales for including the medical humanities in medical edu­cation are generally flimsy. The voiced skepticism of many basic science teachers towards the humanities may contribute to the “empathy decline” from the population to medical physicians around the world, the so called “inhumanity” of the medical doctors. Considering the value of humanities as important for the training of the new generation of professionals requires thinking medicine with the incorporation of arts and other areas of humanities. Supporters of the medical humanities point out that it is in the arena of patient-centered narrative based medicine, rather than population-centered evidence, that the medical humanities play a sig­nificant role. Rifts and tensions exist in the worlds of biomedical science and clinical practice as these apply to medical education. However,the question of impact of medical humanities interventions in medical education should be addressed and critically evaluated.