One thing that many … (largely United States) perspectives have in common is the perception that the medical humanist is anchored in medicine and looking outward, using the lens of the humanities to reconsider medical practice itself. While there is an emphasis on interdisciplinarily and interprofessionalism, it is still largely the patient and the health professional who remain at the center of the discourse. The fact that these programs are rooted in medical schools further solidifies the notion that this is an aspect of medicine, that medical humanists are medical doctors, researchers, and sometimes anthropologists who have taken on the mantle of humanities in service of their profession. They are specialists of medicine first and of the humanities second—a privilege reflected also in the order of the name: medical humanities.
What I would like to discuss today, however, is an alternative perspective—and one that I find has greater presence in the UK than in the US. The Centre for Medical Humanities (home of this blog and supported by the Wellcome Trust) considers the medical humanities as a field of enquiry in which “humanities and social sciences perspectives are brought to bear upon an exploration of the human side of medicine” (Durham University). While this is a subtle distinction, it is significant. The focus here is not upon the practice of medicine, but on the human—and so the privileged perspective is the humanist’s perspective rather that the medical one…. Rather than grounded in medicine and peering out, we are grounded in humanities (the literature, philosophy, ethics, history and religion mentioned above) and looking in. Recognizing not only the power of narrative for today’s healing practices, this perspective engages with history (also a narrative) and fiction, revealing the reciprocal relationship between them and, more importantly, the way “meaning-making” influences and even inspires “measurement.”
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