Harnessing the medical humanities for experiential learning

[Satendra Singh]

Dear Friends,

Sharing with you all our paper on medical humanities published today in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. As it is an open access journal, I am attaching the pdf for your kind perusal. Here is the abstract:

A month-long workshop on medical humanities was held in the Jorhat Medical College, Assam in September 2015. It employed experiential learning (both online and onsite) using humanities tools, such as the theatre of the oppressed, art, literature, reflective narratives, movies, the history of medicine, graphic medicine, poetry and diversity studies. As a result of the interactions, 28 volunteer participants, comprising students and faculty members, wrote reflective narratives on doctor​–patient relationships, produced a newsletter and a logo for their medical humanities group, and staged cultural performances and forum theatre. The narratives, participants’ reflections and feedback received were subjected to qualitative analysis; the workshop was evaluated using Kirkpatrick’s model. The participants learned to examine their attitudes and behaviour, communicate with their bodies, and experience respect for diversity. There was an improvement in their understanding of empathy, ethics and professionalism. The workshop achieved level-3 (behaviour) on Kirkpatrick’s model, suggesting that such workshops can initiate a change in the ABCDE attributes (attitude, behaviour, communication, diversity, ethics and empathy) of medical professionals.

​http://ijme.in/articles/harnessing-the-medical-humanities-for-experiential-learning/?galley=html​

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Warm regards 

_________________________________________

Dr Satendra Singh, 

MD, FAIMER, FSS 

Associate Professor of Physiology

Associate Editor, Research and Humanities in Medical Education (RHiME)

|Co-coordinator Medical Education Unit | Enabling Unit | 

University College of Medical Sciences & GTB Hospital, Delhi, India

Latest publication: Singh S, Barua P, Dhaliwal U, Singh N. Harnessing the medical humanities for experiential learning. Indian J Med Ethics 2017 

[Ravi Ramakantan]

Thanks, Satendra. You need to do a long term follow up and show dispassionately that these practices help students become 'better' doctors. A tall order but needs to be done.

Ravi Ramakantan.

[Vasistha Bhargavi]

Dear Sir

Thank you for sharing this article. 

Actually I have been in search of many things related to health humanities. In the meantime I happen to see this article again.

This article drawn my attention on one particular thing, does doctors listen the spoken language or 'the body' language of a patient. 

As now a days there are no boarders for students to join Medical course and they are interested to pursue medicine in far off places where they

may n't understand the tongue of the patient. Then 'how to understand the metaphors used by different language speakers to explain their experiences with any disease?

Sorry for the long mail.

Best Regards.