Cultural Context in Medical Humanities: Lessons from Turkey

Cultural context in medical ethics: lessons from Japan

This paper examines two topics in Japanese medical ethics: non-disclosure of medical information by Japanese physicians, and the history of human rights abuses by Japanese physicians during World War II. These contrasting issues show how culture shapes our view of ethically appropriate behavior in medicine. An understanding of cultural context reveals that certain practices, such as withholding...

Medical humanities and cultural studies: lessons learned from an NEH Institute.

In this essay, the directors of an NEH Institute on "Medicine, Literature, and Culture" consider the lessons they learned by bringing humanities scholars to a teaching hospital for a month-long institute that mingled seminar discussions, outside speakers and clinical observations. In an exchange of letters, they discuss the productive tensions inherent in approaching medicine from multiple pers...

The humanities in medical education: lessons from the past.

The humanities in medical education: context, outcomes and structures.

There is now a context for teaching humanities in undergraduate medical education via special study modules (SSMs). This paper discusses the instrumental and non-instrumental role of the humanities in the education of doctors. Three courses are then described and compared. The most successful of the three is a SSM which had the following characteristics: it was voluntary, it was an integral par...

Cultural crossings of care: An appeal to the medical humanities

Modern medicine is confronted with cultural crossings in various forms. In facing these challenges, it is not enough to simply increase our insight into the cultural dimensions of health and well-being. We must, more radically, question the conventional distinction between the 'objectivity of science' and the 'subjectivity of culture'. This obligation creates an urgent call for the medical huma...