In the 1970s, the field of medical humanities developed and included ethics, literature, history, integrative medicine, and other topics, most often described from a physician's perspective. During this same period of revolutionary changes in health care, nursing curricula did not seek to emphasize content in humanities, perhaps because stereotypical views of nursing as the "caring profession" ...

Justifying the existence, position, and relevance of academic humanities scholarship may be difficult in the face of chronic practical needs in health care. Such scholarship may seem parasitic on human activity and performance that directly contributes to human wellbeing and health care. Here, a possible and partial justification for the importance of scholarship in the humanities as a critical...

Institute of Thematic Gender Studies: Department of Gender Studies, Tema Institute, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Linköping University Division of Gender and Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University & Centre for Feminist Social Studies (CFS), School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (HumES), Örebro University Gender Studies, School of Humanities, Education and Socia...

Applied Literature, however, does not have literature at its centre. Literature in this domain is a tool to solve problems and achieve goals. Using literature to teach and learn languages, the application of literature to language education, is a very handy example. Health Humanities (by Crawford, et al. and reviewed by A. Ramazani in our Journal's previous issue) comprises chapters on how lite...

In this issue’s Education and debate section Evans and Greaves describe two educational developments in medical humanities. These initiatives appear to raise two important issues in the context of developing the humanities in medical education. Evans and Greaves describe their master’s programme as being “philosophy looking at humanities disciplines looking at medicine”. This acknowledgement of...

Inspiration in medical humanities can be intense and personal, and does not necessarily require the portrayal of health issues.

A new masters-level course, 'Medicine and the Arts" will be offered in 2014 at the University of Cape Town, setting a precedent for interdisciplinary education in the field of medical humanities in South Africa. The humanities and social sciences have always been an implicit part of undergraduate and postgraduate education in the health sciences, but increasingly they are becoming an explicit a...