The Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine is responsible for humanities education in all four years of medical school: five units of the required four-year Patient, Physician, and Society course, 37 to 40 medical humanities seminars in years one and two, more than 125 ethics case conferences in third-year clerkships, and electives for fourth-year students. The program faculty also participate in ethics and humanities education in residencies, and the program offers an annual one-year fellowship. The program introduced the small-group teaching that now characterizes much of the school's curriculum, and its course units and seminars have been a resource for faculty development and curricular innovation. Drawing on literature, religion, ethics, philosophy of medicine, film, history, social and cultural anthropology, and jurisprudence, humanities education is designed to foster habits of discourse on social and moral issues in medicine. Small-group teaching and interactive learning are its central pedagogical methods. Essential to their successful use in a school that enrolls approximately 170 students each year is a large cadre of volunteer clinicians who serve as tutors and the college system, a four-part division of each class instituted by the 1993 curriculum reform. Students are evaluated on preparation, class participation, and regular writing assignments. All course units and seminars are pass/fail (as are all first- and second-year courses); tutors supply narrative comments. The courses themselves are thoroughly evaluated by students and reviewed both by the relevant faculty-student committee and at an annual curriculum retreat.
The central thesis of Abraham Flexner's analyses of North American and European medical education was that the university is essential to the provision of a medical education. The authors invoke the spirit of Flexner to envision further contributions of the university at large to undergraduate medical education. Medical curricula now include elements of a variety of other disciplines that are better represented in other parts of the university. Most schools, however, even those closely affiliated with a comprehensive university, do not take full advantage of these resources, nor do they offer sufficient opportunities for students to pursue individualized interests and learning goals. Medical school now plays a different role in the education of physicians than it did a century ago-it remains the definitive, but is no longer the ultimate, stage in a continuum involving college, professional, postgraduate, and continuing education. The authors explore the medical school years as an opportunity for a liberal education in medicine. Beyond the assurance of competence in core knowledge, skills, and perspectives, this model places more emphasis on nurturing students' intellectual curiosity about phenomena of illness and disease, their understanding of the human condition, and their exploration of the many other disciplines related to medicine and the life sciences. A richer, broader education can be achieved through more flexible and individualized paths to the MD and facilitated by realizing medical schools' full academic citizenship in the university.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.