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Humanities in the Medical Field

By Samantha Branton 

As students on the pre-medicine track, we often feel as though we are only allowed room in our busy schedules for science-based courses. We are told we do not have time to take courses that focus on art appreciation and literature in order to be accepted into medical school. Then as physicians, we are expected to be personable beings who are able to empathize with our patients and make observations easily. To solve this problem, a new field called medical humanities has recently begun challenging this stigma surrounding the pre-medicine track and helping shape physicians into more passionate beings. Medical humanities are an interdisciplinary field that incorporates the arts, philosophy, literature, and history, in an attempt to build physicians who are more empathetic, understanding, and inclined to ask for the help from their peers. Recently, we have seen many medical schools modifying their curriculums to further embrace this new field. Even many of the top medical schools in the country such as Columbia University School of Medicine and University of Pennsylvania Perlman Medical School, have begun accepting students with degrees in the humanities, due to the benefits they will eventually reap. 

One of the best examples of the benefits of studying the medical humanities is seen through pre-medicine students who have taken art analysis and drawing discussion courses. In a study constructed by New York University Medical School, 47 students were enrolled into a discussion-based art course. The goal was to enhance the student’s observational skills while also allowing them to see a situation from every possible point of view—a skill essential for treating patients as a physician. The students were asked to observe a new piece of art each week, write down what they had observed, and share their observations with their peers. The students were also asked why they were seeing something within the painting, what purpose that particular addition could serve, a question many physicians must ask themselves while diagnosing patients. When presented with a long list of patient symptoms, the physician must be able to connect these symptoms in order to form a diagnosis. Overall, this short art seminar helped medical students identify personal biases, empathize with others, and acknowledge different ways of thinking. It allowed students to better articulate their thoughts to their peers as well. This increase in effective communication is absolutely essential when we consider becoming a physician—we must be able to communicate with patients, as well as our peers in order to provide someone with our best possible care. This study also forced students to acknowledge that they are not all knowing, and that sometimes they may need to rely on their peers to discover a detail they may have been missing.

Another study done in the colleges of osteopathic medicine aimed to fix an increase in disruptive conduct among physicians and a decreased rate of patient satisfaction. These trends are occurring out of an effort to minimize costs of visits to the hospitals and increase physician productivity. In these efforts, we have lost what it really means to be a physician—to assess a patient as a comprehensive whole by spending ample time speaking with them during visits, and really getting to know the person. We must recognize that an increase in speed does not positively correlate to an increase in patient satisfaction. This study also spoke of a concept called “soul loss,” this occurs when physicians greatly emotionally distance themselves from a patient in an attempt to not be emotionally harmed with the results of the case. This results in a loss of empathy for the patient which contributes to low numbers for patient satisfaction, when it appears as if a physician does not care, patients notice.  

The Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine, DMU-COM, made it a point to incorporate humanities classes that allowed students to examine the human condition through literary pieces as well as artistic pieces. By allowing students to learn about the human condition and face mortality through literary works, it allows them to process these concepts prior to actually experiencing them in a real-world setting. DMU-COM found that by incorporating these humanities courses students were able to increase their humility and examine ethical issues surrounding medicine through a lens where they could contextualize and assess these dilemmas from a point of view completely removed from the present situation.

The addition of the medical humanities field has allowed undergraduate students to work on observational skills as well as discussion skills. These attributes are the first qualities patients think of when describing a good doctor, yet we have not been training our medical students to value these skills. By adding humanities courses that involve literary and art analysis, we will be able to train well-rounded medical students who will go on to become some of the best physicians.