Creative Arts in Humane Medicine is a book for medical educators, practitioners, students and those in the allied health professions who wish to learn how the arts can contribute toward a more caring and empathic approach to medicine. Topical research and inspiring real-life accounts from international innovators in the field of humanistic medicine show how the creative arts in varied forms can contribute toward greater learning and understanding in medicine, as well as improved health and quality of life for patients and practitioners.

Over the past few decades, the use of the arts in health has blossomed. What, for many centuries, was seen as a fringe activity is now being recognised as a field that has enormous potential for impacting positively on both individuals and societies. However, despite this surge in interest and activity, there is still limited support available for people working in the field. Although the number of practical training courses for artists is growing and more universities are establishing research groups, most training activity occurs in either practice or research; there are relatively few opportunities to gain parallel experience in both. Arts in Health: Designing and Researching Interventions provides a complete overview of how to go about undertaking research and practice in the field of arts in health. It starts by exploring the context for arts in health interventions, including the history of the use of arts in health and the theoretical and political developments that have laid the foundations for its flourishing. It also considers what 'arts in health' encompasses and the range of disciplines involved. Part II examines how to design an arts in health intervention, develop partnerships and find funding and considers the sensitivities around working in healthcare. Part III considers the value of research for the field of arts in health and how to design and undertake a research project. Finally, part IV provides a fact file of arts in health research and practice, showing how the arts can be applied and the benefits they can bring across a range of medical disciplines. The book will be valuable for researchers, practitioners, healthcare professionals and those interested in learning more about the field.

In the United States, broad study in an array of different disciplines â€"arts, humanities, science, mathematics, engineeringâ€" as well as an in-depth study within a special area of interest, have been defining characteristics of a higher education. But over time, in-depth study in a major discipline has come to dominate the curricula at many institutions. This evolution of the curriculum has been driven, in part, by increasing specialization in the academic disciplines. There is little doubt that disciplinary specialization has helped produce many of the achievement of the past century. Researchers in all academic disciplines have been able to delve more deeply into their areas of expertise, grappling with ever more specialized and fundamental problems. Yet today, many leaders, scholars, parents, and students are asking whether higher education has moved too far from its integrative tradition towards an approach heavily rooted in disciplinary "silos". These "silos" represent what many see as an artificial separation of academic disciplines. This study reflects a growing concern that the approach to higher education that favors disciplinary specialization is poorly calibrated to the challenges and opportunities of our time. The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education examines the evidence behind the assertion that educational programs that mutually integrate learning experiences in the humanities and arts with science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) lead to improved educational and career outcomes for undergraduate and graduate students. It explores evidence regarding the value of integrating more STEMM curricula and labs into the academic programs of students majoring in the humanities and arts and evidence regarding the value of integrating curricula and experiences in the arts and humanities into college and university STEMM education programs.

The field of the medical humanities is developing rapidly, however, there has also been parallel concern from sceptics that the value of medical humanities educational interventions should be open to scrutiny and evidence. Just what is the impact of medical humanities provision upon the education of medical students? In an era of limited resources, is such provision worth the investment? This innovative text addresses these pressing questions, describes the contemporary territory comprising the medical humanities in medical education, and explains how this field may be developed as a key medical education component for the future. Bleakley, a driving force of the international movement to establish the medical humanities as a core and integrated provision in the medical curriculum, proposes a model that requires collaboration between patients, artists, humanities scholars, doctors and other health professionals, in developing medical students’ sensibility (clinical acumen based on close noticing) and sensitivity (ethical, professional and humane practice). In particular, this text focuses upon how medical humanities input into the curriculum can help to shape the identities of medical students as future doctors who are humane, caring, expressive and creative – whose work will be technically sound but considerably enhanced by their abilities to communicate well with patients and colleagues, to empathise, to be adaptive and innovative, and to act as ‘medical citizens’ in shaping a future medical culture as a model democracy where social justice is a key aspect of medicine. Making sense of the new wave of medical humanities in medical education scholarship that calls for a ‘critical medical humanities’, Medical Humanities and Medical Education incorporates a range of case studies and illustrative and practical examples to aid integrating medical humanities into the medical curriculum. It will be important reading for medical educators and others working with the medical education community, and all those interested in the medical humanities.

Over the past two decades, there has been a major increase in research into the effects of the arts on health and well-being, alongside developments in practice and policy activities in different countries across the WHO European Region and further afield. This report synthesizes the global evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being, with a specific focus on the WHO European Region. Results from over 3000 studies identified a major role for the arts in the prevention of ill health, promotion of health, and management and treatment of illness across the lifespan. The reviewed evidence included study designs such as uncontrolled pilot studies, case studies, small-scale cross-sectional surveys, nationally representative longitudinal cohort studies, community-wide ethnographies and randomized controlled trials from diverse disciplines. The beneficial impact of the arts could be furthered through acknowledging and acting on the growing evidence base; promoting arts engagement at the individual, local and national levels; and supporting cross-sectoral collaboration.

This book compiles state-of-the art and science of health professions education into an international resource showcasing expertise in many and varied topics. It aligns profession-specific contributions with inter-professional offerings, and prompts readers to think deeply about their educational practices. The book explores the contemporary context of health professions education, its philosophical and theoretical underpinnings, whole of curriculum considerations, and its support of learning in clinical settings. In specific topics, it offers approaches to assessment, evidence-based educational methods, governance, quality improvement, scholarship and leadership in health professions education, and some forecasting of trends and practices. This book is an invaluable resource for students, educators, academics and anyone interested in health professions education.

As countless alterations have taken place in medicine in the twenty-first century so too have literary artists addressed new understandings of disease and pathology. Dis/ability studies, fat studies, mad studies, end-of-life studies, and critical race studies among other fields have sought to better understand what social factors lead to pathologizing certain conditions while other variations remain “normalized.” While recognizing that these scholarly approaches often speak to identities with radically different experiences of pathologization, this collection of essays is open to all critical engagements with narratives of health in order to facilitate the messiness of cross-disciplinary collaboration and interdisciplinarity. As scientific advances provide insight into a wide range of well-being issues and help extend life, it is vital that we come to question the very categories of “healthy” and “unhealthy.” This collection brings together analyses of cultural productions which probe those categorizations and suggest new psychological and philosophical understandings which will help better apply and guide the knowledge being rapidly developed within the life sciences. “Right of health” is a widely accepted human right, but in applying a right to healthcare what care and what sort of health are less universally agreed upon. The contributors share an interest in addressing who controls answers to the questions of “how do we define a healthy body and a healthy life?” and “what are the political forces that influence our definitions of health?”

In this landmark Companion, expert contributors from around the world map out the field of the critical medical humanities. This is the first volume to introduce comprehensively the ways in which interdisciplinary thinking across the humanities and social sciences might contribute to, critique and develop medical understanding of the human individually and collectively. The thirty-six newly commissioned chapters range widely within and across disciplinary fields, always alert to the intersections between medicine, as broadly defined, and critical thinking. Each chapter offers suggestions for further reading on the issues raised, and each section concludes with an Afterword, written by a leading critic, outlining future possibilities for cutting-edge work in this area. Topics covered in this volume include: the affective body, biomedicine, blindness, breath, disability, early modern medical practice, fatness, the genome, language, madness, narrative, race, systems biology, performance, the postcolonial, public health, touch, twins, voice and wonder. Together the chapters generate a body of new knowledge and make a decisive intervention into how health, medicine and clinical care might address questions of individual, subjective and embodied experience.

This exciting book draws on the insight and experience of 21 medical practitioners and researchers in the wider field of the medical humanities to ask fundamental questions related to illness, bodily experience, the experience and role of medical and healthcare professionals, and the contribution of language and communication to enable understanding. It opens up a range of conversations, reflections and research to present an innovative approach to the field of body studies, investigating complex questions that are associated with self and body and medical and healthcare professionals who work with bodies that are ill. Areas of pain, disability, vulnerability, life experienced through chronic conditions and the insights of listening to the ill and the dying are examined within the individual contributions. The chapters explore a range of key spaces, gaps and tensions between talk and bodies, from embodied experiences and patient-doctor relationships to negotiating institutional constraints and reading, looking and enacting as methods of improving intersubjective, relational and ethical practices.