How To Plug The Hole In Liza’s Bucket
It is the 3rd issue of Lumen, the medical humanities magazine of the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences. It is a student-driven effort. As one can see from the contents, our students are in the forefront of combining humanities with medical sciences.
With this issue, I welcome to the Editorial Board Dr. Adam Levine, director and president of the Toledo Museum of Art. Dr. Levine will review and advise me about the quality of art pieces submitted by our students. According to him, the quality of art pieces in this issue surpasses similar efforts by students elsewhere. Just for the record, the Toledo Museum of Art is among the top art museums in the United States and Canada.
Much has been written about the long-term benefits of incorporating a core humanities curriculum in the first few years of medical studies. It helps to make graduating physicians more empathetic and eager to embrace and support art and literary activities in their practical lives. More than that, it can improve the quality of their life and the quality of their family’s life.
While some medical schools in the US and Canada have found ways to incorporate humanities into their medical school curriculum, others have struggled with the difficulty of finding room in an already crowded curriculum. It is like the children song about Liza and Henry. Liza’s bucket has a hole that needs to be plugged. She asks Henry for help. Henry needs strands of straw to plug the hole. To cut the straw, he needs an axe. But his axe is dull and to sharpen it he needs water. He could fetch water in Liza’s bucket but there is a hole in the bucket. Hence the refrain of the song, ‘There is a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza.’
It should not come as a surprise that 80% of accredited medical schools in the US incorporate humanities into their curriculum. In the United Kingdom the ratio is 73% and in Canada 56%. *
These medical schools have recognized the usefulness of teaching humanities to medical students and have made room in the curriculum. There is a way to plug Liza’s bucket. It requires tenacity of purpose to think out of the box.
*Jeremy Howick, Lunan Zhao et al. J Eval Clin Pract. February; 28 (1):76-92
Dr. Sayed Amjad Hussain (he/him/his) Editor-In-Chief of The Lumen Magazine
