Bedside Technicians or Compassionate Healers
What does the study of medicine have to do with humanities? One deals with the human body and its ailments and the other with art, literature, music, and such. This ‘never the twain shall meet’ attitude is rather prevalent across the medical profession.
The following true incidents however compel us to question the wisdom of separating medicine from humanities.
Ruth Hillebrand, a native Toledoan, worked as a psychologist in New York City. She was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Her physician called her, gave her the diagnosis, and said nothing can be done at this stage. And then he hung up.
This was consistent with the impersonal care she had received from her physicians. When she died, she left an endowed gift of $1.9M to the University of Toledo School of Medicine and Life Sciences to, “ensure future doctors, nurses and other health professions trained at the University of Toledo will become excellent diagnosticians who deliver empathetic care.” The Ruth M. Hillebrand Clinical Skills Center on the Health Science Campus of the University, dedicated in 2005, stands testimony to the bad experiences Mrs. Hillebrand had with her physicians.
A few decades ago, a young girl was admitted to our medical center after a motor vehicle accident. She had no insurance coverage, so she was assigned to the trauma surgeon on call. When asked by the resident who would take care of the patient while the surgeon was away on the coming weekend, the surgeon, in the earshot of everyone on the floor including patient’s mother, said: “I don’t care. She will become someone else’s trash.” He was reported to the department chair, but no action was taken.
There is however substantial evidence that adding a core of humanities in the medical school curriculum helps the newly minted physicians to be more empathetic and responsive to their patients. In addition, they are more in tune with the communities they live in by supporting the performing arts and literary activities
In small town America where the lawyers, accountants, teachers, and businessmen support the community theater, music recitals, boy and girl scouts and other civic activities, physicians are conspicuous by their absence. We physicians, it appears, are oblivious to the value of such activities in the life of a community.
Currently the curriculum in medical schools is packed with science and biology courses. As such it does not leave any wiggle room to add humanities in the mix. What if some of the courses could be truncated to make room for humanities?
One could go the route of having medical humanities as an elective in first and second year of medical school as some medical schools including the University of Toledo have done. That however benefits only a small number of students. The other approach would be to have medical humanities incorporated in the curriculum. This way there would be much broader and deeper impact on students. Mandatory inclusion of humanities in the curriculum is the only way, experts say, to add substance to the professional lives of future physicians.
We also know that art, literature, and music help us maintain the delicate balance between work and life. We certainly do not wish the younger generation of physicians to be what Melvin Konner* called (and our two examples given above strongly suggest), cynical, cold, mechanical, reflexive, and omnipotent. Dr. Konnor believes exposure to the humanities can be used to help counter these negative emotions and attitudes.
So, what should we teach? There is little consensus as to what should be added in the basket of humanities for medical students. But this is not an insurmountable issue. A core curriculum encompassing bioethics, art, music, history of medicine, and medical social sciences can be developed with ease.
There are a number of medical schools, including Duke University, Yale School of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, and Indiana University School of Medicine, that already have humanities as part of the medical curriculum. It will be for the benefit of the society if more schools would pay heed to the importance of humanities.
*Konner M. Becoming a doctor: A journey of initiation in medical school. New York: Viking Penguin Inc.; 1987.
Suggested Readings
The role of humanities in the medical curriculum: medical students ’perspectives. Petrou, L, Mittleman, E, Osibona, O, et al. BMC Med Educ, 21;2021
Charon R, Williams P. Introduction: The humanities and medical education. Acad Med. 1995;70(9):758–60.
Dolan B. History, medical humanities and medical education. Soc Hist Med. 2010;23(2):393–405
Jackson M. Back to the future: History and humanism in medical education. Med Educ. 2002;36:506–7
Doukas DJ, McCullough LB, Wear S. Re-visioning Flexner: Educating physicians to be clinical scientists and humanists. Am J Med. 2010;123(12):1155–6.
Davies R. Can a doctor be a humanist? In: The merry heart: Reflections on Reading, writing and the world of books. New York: Viking; 1997.
Dr. Sayed Amjad Hussain holds emeritus professorship in cardiothoracic surgery in the College of Medicine and Life Sciences and emeritus professorship in the College of Arts and Letters, University of Toledo. He has been an op-ed columnist for the Toledo Blade and essayist for The Friday Times of Lahore Pakistan. He is the author most recently of “A Tapestry of Medicine and Life”.
