Abstract

BANOS, Josep-E.. Usefulness of literature in the education of medical students. Educ. méd. [online]. 2003, vol.6, n.2, pp.37-43. ISSN 1575-1813.

The interest of teaching humanities in medical schools is increasingly accepted. Since the first course on literature and medicine was started at the Pennsylvania State University in the early seventies, the number of US medical schools offering these courses has increased and now one third of them are including this topic in their curricula. However, many teachers still put in doubt its interest and some of them are unable to understand its usefulness for training medical students. They argue that these courses are not giving any important knowledge that was not already covered by the scientific approach. Some empirical evidences, however, defy such opinions. Literature courses may give to medical students additional information that is needed to understand better some aspects of medical practice. For instance, psychological and sociological aspects of illness and the role of physicians in the holistic treatment of disease may be better understood using literary works rather than classical medical textbooks. Some of the former are masterpieces of human behavior description and sickness is a frequent part of its plot. In the present article, the interest of literature for medical students is discussed and the syllabus of a proposal of a Literature and Medicine course is presented.

Keywords : Literature; medical humanities; biopsychosocial model; medical education.

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