Cheryl L. McLean,
Publisher,International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice
Among the fundamental principles of humanistic medicine or values based
medicine are open communication, mutual respect and relationship centred care.
The creative arts can play a critical and
important role in fostering humane medicine in medical education and in
practice.
"In
the US, a recent study found that over half of all US medical schools involved
the arts in learning activities (Rodenhauser, Strickland, & Gambala,2004)
to help foster student well-being, enhance teaching
and learning, and improve clinical and relational skills, for example,
observation and diagnostic skills, reflection and insight." ( Excerpt
from the article by Pamela Brett-MacLean Ph.D. Use of the Arts in Medical and
Health Professional Education, University of Alberta Health Sciences Journal
• September 2007 • Volume 4 • Issue 1)
Programs
integrating the arts and humanities in medical education continue to flourish
and gain momentum with leading medical schools and universities offering
programming such as Stanford
School of Medicine, Arts, Humanities and Medicine, established to “promote
creative and scholarly work at the intersections between the arts, humanities
and medicine in order to enhance understanding of the contextual meanings of
illness, healthcare, and the human condition”, and The Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham U.K.
with a research programme organized around five research clusters, Imagination
and Creativity; Practice and Practitioner; Policy Politics Collective;
Transfiguring and Mind Body Affect.
In
Canada, Dalhousie University,
Halifax, Humanities in Medicine, offers five core initiatives: History of
Medicine; Narrative Medicine (oral storytelling film, mass media, and
literature); Music; Spirituality; and Visual Arts. The Arts and
Humanities in Health and Medicine Program at the University of Alberta was
launched in May 2006. The program is directed to engendering a balance of
scientific knowledge and compassionate care with a mission statement that
formally acknowledges “the explicit recognition within the Faculty that clinical
practice is both an art and a science.”
The
arts can offer creative opportunities
for learning and a place for self expression and healing. A leader in the field
of Narrative Medicine, Dr. Rita Charon,
Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director of the Program in Narrative
Medicine at Columbia University has long advocated for the use of narrative
in medical education to honour stories of illness. Dr. Arthur Frank, Professor of
Sociology, University of Calgary, and author of “The Wounded Storyteller,
Body, Illness and Ethics”, writes about the meaningful uses of storytelling for
those experiencing illness, “The personal issue of telling stories about illness
is to give voice to the body, so the changed body can become once again familiar
in these stories.”
At the University of
Toronto, the Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) Program has begun a
systematic integration of different types of narrative into the curriculum with
a new Companion Curriculum which
offers support to the empathic or “moral imagination”, and allows students to
consider the internal experiences of patients, families, other students and
healthcare professional (see Health, Arts and Humanities Programme, University
of Toronto, http://health-humanities.com
In
the article, "Physicians Speak Out
About Arts in Medicine", published in The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice,
physicians were offered the opportunity to voice their stories and share
examples of how they use the arts in medical education.
The article “Stories and Society, Using Literature to Teach Medical Students About Public Health and Social Justice,” was contributed by Martin Donohoe, MD, FACP, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Community Health, Portland State University and Senior Physician of Internal Medicine at The Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Centre. Donohoe offered an argument for “enhancing public health education of medical students through the use of literature with the goal of creating activist physicians knowledgeable about, and eager to confront, the social, economic and cultural contributions to illness”.
The article “Stories and Society, Using Literature to Teach Medical Students About Public Health and Social Justice,” was contributed by Martin Donohoe, MD, FACP, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Community Health, Portland State University and Senior Physician of Internal Medicine at The Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Centre. Donohoe offered an argument for “enhancing public health education of medical students through the use of literature with the goal of creating activist physicians knowledgeable about, and eager to confront, the social, economic and cultural contributions to illness”.
In the same issue Dr. Maureen Rappaport reported on the creative writing course she teaches as an elective to fourth year medical students at McGill University, a course that provides an important place for students to express feelings through narratives and poetry.
Physician and Educator Dr. Pippa Hall at The University of Ottawa, has been a palliative care physician for over ten years integrating arts into learning activities for pre-licensure students and in post graduate programs as well as in continuing professional development activities in nursing and spiritual care. She explained how she found the arts in many forms provided opportunities for learning while offering new insights into the human condition.
The International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP also explored the exciting potential for other innovative and creative technologies incorporated into teaching and medical education. Kim Bullock, MD, family medicine and emergency room physician, and Director of the Community Health Division and Assistant Director of Service Learning in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University, Medical Centre, Washington reported she believes digital storytelling in medical education has the potential to “link the social, environmental, and historical issues that influence health and illness through graphics”. “What emerges,” she writes, “are voices from the community that bear witness to issues that influence health including problems related to the environment, housing, public safety violence, inequities ..”
Human communication, has been recognized as increasingly important in medical education. According to a recent article in Family Medicine, "the Association of American Medical Colleges, the US Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education have called for medical educators to carefully define, teach, and evaluate communications skills for physicians in training." (Haq, Steele, Marchand, Seibert, Brody, Family Medicine,Vol. 36)
With new emphasis on communication, mutual respect and relationship building, be it interprofessionally or between physicians and patients, Creative Arts in Humane Medicine will be a topical resource for educators in the Medical Humanities, Public Health, Health Promotion, Social Work and the Social Services providing helpful examples for others interested in using the arts in education to help contribute toward a more caring and empathic approach to practice.
Creative Arts in Humane Medicine, a new text for medical educators, has been
developed in response to the growing need for resources in the arts and
medicine. The book explores the field
internationally and features illustrative examples of the arts in action in
medical education and practice.
The
groundbreaking book, scheduled for release in 2013, is a project of The International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP edited by Cheryl L. McLean and published by Brush Education Inc.
