ABSTRACT
In recent years, however, humanities classes have become part of the curriculum in many medical schools, where they provide other nonscientific materials and approaches for considering diverse cultures and contexts of illness and care. For ten years I have directed a required introductory course in humanities for all first-year students as well as a series of month-long elective rotations during the fourth or final year. In fact, when members of the Society for Health and Human Values convene to explore ethical issues, one understand that many of the dilemmas or concerns are rooted in cultural dislocations-or paradigm shifts. Students may be trained in square rooms, but the world they face is composed almost completely of rhomboids, cones, waving lines, ellipses, half-moons. 'Sombreros' serve metaphorically to suggest that the world is culturally complex an idea embodied in fiction and of paramount importance to a profession dealing with human realities.
