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Arts and humanities

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 Arts and humanities

Kieran Walsh

At the end of their careers, physicians tend to wax poetic about the art of medicine and how it is being
lost. (The same art seems to be lost every generation.)
Ezekiel Emanuel

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.

Joseph Addison
Addison J. The Spectator. November 1711

I read Shakespeare and the Bible and I can shoot dice. That’s what I call a liberal education.
Tallulah Bankhead
Attributed

If we dispensed with the year of arts and made our medical curriculum more facile, we might attract more
students to our portals, but would we be doing our duty to our profession or to the public?
John Banks
Banks JT. An Address on Medical Reform. BMJ 1883;1:294

If at 16 they opt for medicine, by that not ignoble choice they slam the door, at once and for good, on
literae humaniores.
Lindsey Batten
Batten LW. Adult Education: For the General Practitioner. BMJ 1955;2:511

Medicine and medical education must turn away from a traditional tough-minded heroic outlook
(gendered male) that upholds autonomy, to embrace a tender-minded, more collaborative and feminine
medicine.
Alan Bleakley
Bleakley A. Social comparison, peer learning and democracy in medical education
Med Teach Nov 2010, Vol. 32, No. 11: 878–879.

To avoid having the profession of medicine become marginalized, we must continue to seek diversity of
education not for the sake of multiculturalism or because of a need for a special division called Medical
Humanities, but because we need to restore humanity to our practice.
Michael Bogdasarian
Bogdasarian MA. The Medical Humanities and Medical Education. JAMA. 2006;295(9):997.

Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.

Georges Braque
Braque G. Le Jour et la nuit: Cahiers 1917-52

Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.
Anita Brookner
Brookner A. A Start in Life. 1981

In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Bulwer-Lytton E. Caxtoniana. Hints on Mental Culture. (1863)
Some said, John, print it, others said, Not so;
Some said, It might do good, others said, No.
John Bunyan
Apology for his Book

In the end, any model of “the medical humanities” suffers perhaps most egregiously from an inability to
pay for itself within medical centers.
Rafael Campo
Campo R. “The Medical Humanities,” for Lack of a Better Term. JAMA. 2005;294(9):1009-1011.

Perhaps in the effort to devise teaching strategies that address the humanities as they relate to medicine,
we will reflect more deeply on our own day-to-day behavior and thus become better models of providing
the humanistic care that we aspire to give.
Rafael Campo
Campo R. The Medical Humanities and Medical Education—Reply. JAMA. 2006;295(9):997-998.

Medicine is my lawful wife but literature is my mistress. When I am bored with one I spend a night with the
other.
Anton Chekhov
Chekhov A. Letter to Suvorin, 1888

The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. It is a disease which arises from men not
having sufficient power of expression to utter and get rid of the element of art in their being.
GK Chesterton
Chesterton GK. Heretics. 1905

The cultivation of the mind is a kind of food supplied for the soul of man.
Cicero
De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum

Art for art’s sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves a purpose which is not
its own.
Benjamin Constant
Constant B. Diary. 11 February 1804

To heal and to care has always required more than scientific expertise and technical skill. It requires a
rich understanding of human nature, an idealistic engagement with values, and an exposure to the broad
panorama of the social sciences and humanities.
Richard Cruess
Cruess RL. Medicine and books: Developing Professional Judgement in Health Care. BMJ 1998;316:947

It is to be regretted, but I fear it is inevitable, that the study of the old humanities must be curtailed, and
must even in some measure disappear from medical education.
James Cuming
Cuming J. Address in Medicine. BMJ 1892;2:230

Medical education does not need the equivalent of a Billy Graham crusade to exaggerate its sins and
offer repentance, salvation, and the cheap disruptive thrills of being born again.
Colin Currie
Currie C. Global village fete. BMJ 1988;297:630

At the end of their careers, physicians tend to wax poetic about the art of medicine and how it is being
lost. (The same art seems to be lost every generation.)
Ezekiel Emanuel
Emanuel EJ. Changing Premed Requirements and the Medical Curriculum. JAMA. 2006;296(9):1128-
1131.

A purely scientific education is inadequate for a profession which deals with so close a relationship
between mind and matter, and an education in the arts alone is insufficient for minds compelled to live in
a material world.
John Fairlie
Fairlie J. Response. BMJ (Published 18 January 2000)
http://www.bmj.com/content/319/7219/1216/reply#bmj_el_6262?sid=7f1b5b2e-7b0c-43f6-8a46-
f45951808b4f (accessed 2.10.11)

The purpose of art is the lifelong construction of a state of wonder.

Glenn Gould
Gould G. Commencement address, York University, Toronto, 1982

I would argue that our success or failure in teaching empathy and humanism begins with the manner in
which teaching itself is done.
Harold Horowitz
Horowitz HW. Hey! I'm a Teacher Too. JAMA. 1998;280(9):765.

When I was a boy I wanted to know all about the clouds and the grasses, and why the leaves changed
colour in the autumn, I watched the ants, bees, birds, tadpoles, and caddis-worms: I pestered people with
questions about what nobody knew or cared anything about.
John Hunter
Sampson Handley W. Makers of John Hunter. BMJ 1939;1:313

The physician ought to know literature, to be able to understand or to explain what he reads.
St. Isidore of Seville
Etymologiae IV

Blest be the hour wherein I bought this book;

His studies happy that composed the book,
And the man fortunate that sold the book.
Ben Jonson
Every man out of his Humour

Every age hath its book.

Koran. Ch. XIII.

Can any medical man pretend to any real celebrity, or to occupy any high position safely, who has not
carefully studied the mechanism of the human body, with its multiplied parts and its varied functions?
James Thomas Law
Law JT. Address, Delivered at the Opening of the Present Session of Queen's College, Birmingham
Prov Med Surg J 1846;s1-10:485

The book is the greatest interactive medium of all time. You can underline it, write it in the margins, fold
down a page, skip ahead. And you can take it anywhere.
Michael Lynton
Lynton M. Daily Telegraph. August 1996

The hearts of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their eloquence.
Thomas Macaulay
Essays
Arts and humanities have a contribution to make both in improving health and in educating doctors
Jane Macnaughton
Macnaughton J. Arts and humanities in medical education. In Harrison J, van Zwanenberg T (Eds). GP
nd
tomorrow (2 edition). Radcliffe Medical Press 2002. pp 67-77

Arts may well provide relaxation and replenishment, parallels and lessons about people (sometimes
specifically about doctors and patients), but they also afford opportunities for deeper engagement and
reflection.
John Middleton
Middleton J. Art for the sake of 'caritas' Educ Prim Care (2008) 19: 360–3.

Young men ought to come well prepared for the study of Medicine, by having their minds enriched with all
the aids they can receive from the languages, the liberal arts.
Montesquieu
A Discourse Upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America

I do not for a moment suggest that a doctor is not fit to practise if he is not liberally educated, but only that
he will be the better doctor if he is.
Arthur Morgan Jones
Morgan Jones A. Medical Progress and Medical Education. BMJ 1952;2:466

While science has undeniably contributed massively to modern medicine, it has mainly nourished the
analytical skills of clinicians and not their overtly human face ‘at the bedside’, while it seems clear that the
humanities could contribute most significantly to the latter aspect of medicine.
Peter Morrell
Morell P. Re: Medicine, intelligence, and the humanities. BMJ (Published 30 June 2000)
http://www.bmj.com/content/320/7247/1483.1/reply#bmj_el_8569?sid=7f1b5b2e-7b0c-43f6-8a46-
f45951808b4f (accessed 12.9.11)

There is no doubt that literature broadens ones horizons but when it comes to medical education the
fundamentals of safe and knowledgeable practice come first.
Martyn Neil
Neil M. There is no need for a literary component to medical education. BMJ (Published 19 December
2005)
http://www.bmj.com/content/331/7530/1482/reply#bmj_el_124193?sid=cb764c2a-ad1a-4f84-a8c4-
88b3568c267c (accessed 12.9.11)

It is a defect in our whole education that the artist sense is deliberately 'repressed; the prizes tend to go to
possessors of superior memories rather than to those who can observe and reason best.
John Nixon
Nixon JA. The art and science of medicine in relation to professional training. BMJ 1928;2:363

To be instructed in the arts, softens the manners and makes men gentle.
Ovid
Epistolæ Ex Ponto. II. 9. 47.

The art of medicine cannot be inherited, nor can it be copied from books.
Paracelsus
Kline GA. The discovery, elucidation, philosophical testing and formal proof of various exceptions
to medical sayings and rules. CMAJ. 2004 December 7; 171(12): 1491–1492.

Good medicine requires humanity, which can be achieved with or without spirituality or a personal belief
in a god. Such humanity may be enhanced by our recognition and understanding of diverse belief
systems and the importance placed on them and their associated customs and rituals, which impact
health and well being.
Vivian Rambihar
Rambihar VS. Chaos: weaving together the threads of art, science, humanity and the humanities. BMJ
(Published 19 June 2000)
http://www.bmj.com/content/320/7247/1483.1/reply#bmj_el_8569?sid=7f1b5b2e-7b0c-43f6-8a46-
f45951808b4f (accessed 12.9.11)

In my own academic career I have heard it argued that there should be included in the curriculum:
English literature, logic, moral philosophy, economics, history, mathematics, computer science, and
jurisprudence - and, of course, anthropology. Surely an enlightened clinical teacher must be encouraged
to draw his understanding and expression from a variety of subjects without feeling that
specialists have always to be imported to do a demarcated job.
Ian Richardson
Richardson IM. More anthropology for medical students. BMJ 1981;282:314

My problem is this: the arts can certainly make us feel happier and give us more resources to draw on
when our spirits need to be revived and refreshed. But does an appreciation for poetry or painting make
us better doctors?
John Salinsky
Salinsky J. Commentary: Art for whose sake? Some thoughts about poetry in the curriculum. Educ Prim
Care (2007) 18: 683–4

Art for art’s sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of the true, art for the sake of the good and the
beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.
George Sand
Sand G. Letter to Alexandre Saint-Jean, 1872

We study the past for its interest and in expectation of enlarging our understanding and increasing our
powers of appreciation. Like all worthwhile achievement, appreciation requires practice.
David Smithers
Smithers D. On some medicoliterary alliances. BMJ 1985;291:1796

Comments on the humanities should not be a separate program, or a separate calling, but should be part
of the character of all teachers of medical students and thereby of their students.
Howard Spiro
Spiro H. The Medical Humanities and Medical Education. JAMA. 2006;295(9):997.

Gentlemen, in our education, that education which ends only with the grave, let us echo the desire of
David that our days may be so numbered that we shall incline our hearts unto Wisdom.
Samuel Squire Sprigge
Squire Sprigge S. An Address on prizes and performances: Delivered at the Opening of the Medical
st
Session at St. George's Hospital, on October 1 . BMJ 1910;2:1024

We know that adults learn best when the subject is seen as real and relevant to their everyday needs and
they can then see rapid value for their everyday work.
George Taylor
Taylor G. Why use the arts in medial education? In Powley E, Higson R. The arts in medical education: a
practical guide. Radcliffe Publishing, Oxon. 2005. pp 1-4

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
von Goethe JW. Torquato Tasso. 1790
Everyone must decide how to balance education in science and the humanities, but, whatever the
proportion, education must be a discipline as habitual as the 9 o'clock surgery, not something to be fitted
in if time permits.
CW Walker
Walker CW. Adult Education: For the General Practitioner. BMJ 1955;2:513

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.
Oscar Wilde
Leverson A. Letters to the Sphinx. 1930

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Butler, J. (1997) Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (1997), ibid

Clouston, T.S. (1890) Diseased Cravings and Paralysed Control. Edinburgh Medical Journal, March, 793-
809

Dunn, K.L. (2006) Sickness, healing and opera: Wagner’s Parsifal. J Med Humanities (32) 7-10

Engel, J.D. Zarconi, J, Pethtel, L.L., and Missimi SA (2008) Narrative in Health Care. Radcliffe Publishing.
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