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Toward an Aesthetic Medicine: Developing a Core Medical Humanities Undergraduate Curriculum

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Abstract

The medical humanities are often implemented in the undergraduate medicine curriculum through injection of discrete option courses as compensation for an overdose of science. The medical humanities may be reformulated as process and perspective, rather than content, where the curriculum is viewed as an aesthetic text and learning as aesthetic and ethical identity formation. This article suggests that a “humanities” perspective may be inherent to the life sciences required for study of medicine. The medical humanities emerge as a revelation of value inherent to an aesthetic medicine taught and learned imaginatively.

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Notes

  1. Pinar and Reynolds, Understanding Curriculum as Phenomenological and Deconstructed Text, 1–16.

  2. Stanley, Curriculum for Utopia: Social Reconstruction and Critical Pedagogy in the Postmodern Era, 159.

  3. Slattery, Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era, ix, 77.

  4. Applebee, Curriculum as Conversation: Transforming Traditions of Teaching and Learning, 94, 96.

  5. Pinar et al, Understanding Curriculum, An Introduction to the Study of Historical and Contemporary Curriculum Discourses, 567–605.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Foucault, in Lotringer, Foucault Live: Collected Interviews, 450–454.

  8. Foucault, “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress,” 351.

  9. Bernauer, Michel Foucault's Force of Flight: Toward an Ethics for Thought, 180–184.

  10. Bernauer and Rasmussen, The Final Foucault, 1–20.

  11. Simons, Foucault & the Political, 68–80.

  12. O’Leary, Foucault and the Art of Ethics.

  13. Bleakley, “Doctors as Connoisseurs of Informational Images: Aesthetic and Ethical Self-forming through Medical Education,” 149–164.

  14. Chauvin, “Professionalism: A Shared Responsibility for a Rich and Enduring Tapestry,” 410–411.

  15. Gordon, “Fostering Students’ Personal and Professional Development in Medicine: A New Framework for PPD,” 341–349.

  16. Bleakley, “Safety in Operating Theatres: Improving Teamwork through Team Resource Management,” 83–91.

  17. Bernstein, Class, Codes and Control, vol. 1, 143.

  18. Pinar et al, Understanding Curriculum, 1996, 244.

  19. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

  20. Foucault, in Lotringer, Foucault Live, 226.

  21. Pinar et al, offers an overview of text positions.

  22. Buck-Morss,” Aesthetics and Anaesthetics: Walter Benjamin's Artwork Essay Reconsidered,” 378.

  23. Bleakley et al, “Learning How to See: Doctors Making Judgments in the Visual Domain.”

  24. Bleakley et al, “Making Sense of Clinical Reasoning: Judgement and the Evidence of the Senses.”

  25. Bleakley, “Doctors as Connoisseurs.”

  26. Hunter, Doctors’ Stories: The Narrative Structure of Medical Knowledge.

  27. Nelson, Stories and Their Limits: Narrative Approaches to Bioethics.

  28. Greenhalgh and Hurwitz, Narrative Based Medicine.

  29. Charon and Montello, Stories Matter: The Role of Narrative in Medical Ethics.

  30. Chauvin.

  31. Schon, Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions.

  32. Hunter, “Aphorisms, Maxims, and Old Saws: Narrative Rationality and the Negotiation of Clinical Choice,” 215–231.

  33. Hunter, Doctors’ Stories.

  34. Pinar et al, Understanding Curriculum, 567.

  35. Bleakley et al, “Learning How to See.”

  36. Bleakley et al, “Making Sense of Clinical Reasoning.”

  37. Bleakley, “Doctors as Connoisseurs.”

  38. Bernstein, 8.

  39. Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological.

  40. Dittrich and Farmakidis, “The Humanities and Medicine: Reports of 41 U.S., Canadian, and International Programs.”

  41. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

  42. Kerosuo and Engestrom, “Boundary Crossing and Learning in Creation of New Work Practice.”

  43. Engestrom, “New Forms of Learning in Co-configuration Work.”

  44. Engestrom, Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research.

  45. Polansky, “Is Medicine Art, Science, or Practical Wisdom? Ancient and Contemporary Reflections,” 31–56.

  46. Boshuizen, “Medical Education; Or the Art of Keeping a Balance Between Science and Pragmatics,” 185–197.

  47. Carey and Smith 1999, “On Understanding the Nature of Scientific Knowledge,” 170–184.

  48. Driver et al, “Perspectives on the Nature of Science,” 36–55.

  49. Brawn, “The formal and the intuitive in science and medicine,” 137–148.

  50. Pauli et al, “Medical Education, Research, and Scientific Thinking in the 21st Century,” 15–26; 165–172; 173–186.

  51. Latour, Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies.

  52. Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological.

  53. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe.

  54. Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic.

  55. Hunter, Doctors’ Stories.

  56. Bleakley, “Stories as Data, Data as Stories: Making Sense of Narrative Inquiry in Clinical Education.”

  57. Chambers, The Fiction of Bioethics.

  58. Charon and Montello.

  59. Nelson.

  60. Lingard et al, “Expert and Trainee Determinations of Rhetorical Relevance in Referral and Consultation Letters.”

  61. Hunter, Doctor's Stories.

  62. Bleakley, “You are who I say you are: The rhetorical construction of identity in operating theatre teams.”

  63. Carver, Where I’m Calling From.

  64. Blau, The Objectivist Nexus: Essays in Cultural Poetics.

  65. Batchelor, Minimalism.

  66. Meyer, Minimalism.

  67. Marzona, Minimal Art.

  68. Pololi and Frankel, “Humanising Medical Education through Faculty Development: Linking Self-awareness and Teaching Skills.”

  69. Illich, Limits to Medicine.

  70. McLachlan et al, “Teaching Anatomy Without Cadavers.”

  71. McLachlan and Regan de Bere, “How Do We Teach Anatomy Without Cadavers?”

  72. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception.

  73. Bleakley et al, “Learning How to See.”

  74. Bleakley et al, “Making Sense of Clinical Reasoning.”

  75. Waldby, The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine.

  76. van Dijck, The Transparent Body: A Cultural Analysis of Medical Imaging.

  77. Foucault, In Lotringer.

  78. Bleakley, “Doctors As Connoisseurs,” applies Foucault's model to formation of identity in medical education.

  79. Arnott et al, “Proposal for an Academic Association for Medical Humanities,” 104–105.

  80. Latour, We Have Never Been Modern.

  81. Derrida, Of Grammatology.

  82. Cited in Ross, Assessment in Arts Education.

  83. Herringman, Romantic Science: The Literary Forms of Natural History.

  84. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life.

  85. Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society.

  86. Hunter, Doctors’ Stories.

  87. Hunter, “Aphorisms, Maxims, and Old Saws.”

  88. Bruner, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds.

  89. Hudson, Contrary Imaginations: A Psychological Study of the English Schoolboy.

  90. Bleakley, “Your Creativity or Mine?”

  91. Hudson, Frames of Mind: Ability, Perception, and Self-perception in the Arts and Sciences.

  92. Polanyi and Prosch, Meaning, 31.

  93. Brawn.

  94. Bleakley et al, “Learning How to See.”

  95. Bleakley et al, “Making Sense of Clinical Reasoning.”

  96. Fish and Coles, Developing Professional Judgement in Health Care, 272.

  97. Montgomery, “Phronesis and the Misdescription of Medicine: Against The Medical School Commencement Speech,” 57–66.

  98. Thomasma, “Aristotle, Phronesis, and Postmodern Bioethics,” 67–92.

  99. Boshuizen, Medical Education.

  100. Eraut, Developing Professional Knowledge and Competence.

  101. Boshuizen.

  102. Hunter, Doctors’ Stories.

  103. Cole, “Alexander Luria, Cultural Psychology and the Resolution of the Crisis in Psychology.”

  104. Richards.

  105. Herringman, Romantic Science.

  106. Driver et al, “Perspectives on the Nature of Science.”

  107. Carey and Smith, “On Understanding the Nature of Scientific Knowledge.”

  108. Barfield, Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning.

  109. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, 17.

  110. Bleakley, “Doctors as Connoisseurs.”

  111. Pauli et al, “Medical Education, Research, and Scientific Thinking in the 21st Century,” 15–26; 165–172; 173–186.

  112. Genn, “Curriculum, Environment, Climate, Quality and Change in Medical Education – A Unifying Perspective,” 337–344; 445–454.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Clinical Education, Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, The John Bull Building, Tamar Science Park, Plymouth, Devon, PL6 8BU, United Kingdom

    Alan Bleakley, Robert Marshall & Rainer Brömer

  2. Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, Cornwall, TR1 3HD, UK

    Alan Bleakley

  3. Department of Pathology, Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, Cornwall, TR1 3HD, UK

    Robert Marshall

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  1. Alan Bleakley
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Correspondence to Alan Bleakley.

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Bleakley, A., Marshall, R. & Brömer, R. Toward an Aesthetic Medicine: Developing a Core Medical Humanities Undergraduate Curriculum. J Med Humanit 27, 197–213 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-006-9018-5

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