ABSTRACT
This chapter considers two contrasting approaches. The first equates medical humanities with the medical arts as a set of subjects which can be set against as well as complement medical sciences, and this is probably the view most commonly taken of the nature of medical humanities. The second approach focuses on the human as relevant to the whole of medicine and so cuts across the traditional formulation of Western medicine as comprising separate realms of art and science, with the human aspects restricted mainly, if not exclusively, to the former. Thus it cannot readily be captured within the familiar categories of medical arts and sciences, or medicine as art and science.
The former restricts the medical humanities to an engagement of medicine with liberal arts, so linking together a range of subjects, variously defined, to match that of medical science. However, it is without any unifying conception, other than the contrast made with science. Its principal aim is therefore usually seen as being to provide a ‘balance’ to medical science, rather than having any direct influence on it. The latter provides an innovative and unified approach which transcends the present structure of medicine as a divided discipline, so both allowing for a reappraisal of medical theory and knowledge, whilst at the same time enabling practitioners to develop a more rounded and humane attitude to their practice.
This second view of medical humanities is regarded as preferable because it challenges the division of medicine into separate realms of art and science, which is at the heart of many of its current difficulties, and thus holds out the prospect of developing new ways of resolving them. To avoid confusion, though, the first approach might be better called the ‘medical arts’, with the term ‘medical humanities’ being reserved for the second more general approach.
This wider conception of medical humanities raises deeper questions concerning assumptions which are usually taken for granted and are of relevance to the whole of medicine. Promoting medical humanities then requires not just an addition to the curriculum, but a permeation and change of orientation of the culture of medicine, which will transform not only clinical practice but also the theoretical basis and social structures of medicine and healthcare.
126Teaching the medical arts is fully compatible with developing medical humanities in this way, but their purposes are different. The medical arts are essentially an ornament to medicine, whilst the medical humanities are an integral part of it. The medical arts are aimed at humanising practitioners, medical humanities is aimed at humanising medicine.
