Webinar Summary: An Urgent Need for Teaching Medical Humanities

The idea of teaching and incorporating Medical Humanities is not a new invention in the current, modern era of medical treatment. Jonathan´s webinar is full of quotes of both historically important personalities and contemporary authors and researchers, such as William Osler, Gavin Francis or Kieran Setiya.

Jonathan´s call for restoration of balance, humanity in healthcare, and re-humanization is based on his observations while teaching medical students. The crisis persisting in healthcare in European countries with different healthcare systems shows the same – healthcare workers are overloaded, exhausted, feel under pressure, lose both their motivation and their enthusiasm, especially in this COVID-19 era. This leads to an increase in burnouts and depression. Unfortunately, these negative effects can be seen even in medical students. Those who are about to graduate or have just started the career of their dreams suddenly realize that they have lost their ideals and do not know why they decided to study medicine.

Jonathan believes that doctors should ask essential existential questions about the meaning of life and death in a conversation with a patient. He emphasizes the doctor´s active listening skills, a balanced doctor-patient relationship, protecting a patient by choosing appropriate treatment, evidence-based medicine, dualism between the science and humanities, and in particular difference in meaning of disease and illness. He also lists benefits of implementing a humanistic approach into a doctor-patient conversation.

Watch the webinar and find out more on what the audience and Jonathan think about the following issues:

• What Medical Humanities are;
• Why teaching it is important;
• How patients can benefit from Medical Humanities;
• How medical English teachers can use Medical Humanities; get tips on literature, film, piece of art;
• What is the future for Medical Humanities in the curriculum of medical universities.