A Call to Include Medical Humanities in the Curriculum of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine and in Applicant Selection

Abstract

Medicine stands at a crossroad. Disruptive physician behavior has increased, and patient satisfaction has decreased. A growing body of knowledge demonstrates that the medical humanities assist in the creation of compassionate, resilient physicians. Incorporating medical humanities into the medical school curriculum promotes the development of compassionate, culturally sensitive physicians, and also encourages the development of resilience in health care professionals at a time when internal and external pressures on physicians are increasing.

A podcast to teach medical humanities at medical school: a text-mining study of students’ lived experience

“…While students value the existence of dedicated teaching of the humanities as a complement to biomedical teaching [ 43 , 44 ], efforts to widely integrate this teaching into the curriculum remain limited in France, partly due to time constraints and work overload. To achieve greater inclusion in the curriculum, medical humanities should ideally be incorporated into the curriculum through the lens of biomedical science and clinical practice [ 45 , 46 ]. A podcast thus represents a well-suited option considering the potential limitations and characteristics of the optimal learning content.…”

Developing and Evaluating Medical Humanities Problem-Based Learning Classes Facilitated by the Teaching Assistants Majored in the Liberal Arts

“…Medical humanities not only can nurture medical students’ critical thinking, but also their understanding of personal values, empathy, cultural competence, leadership, and teamwork, thus preparing medical students for responding appropriately to complicated clinical problems. 7 Given that incorporating medical humanities into a medical school's curriculum promotes the development of empathetic, compassionate, and culturally sensitive physicians, 8 medical humanities are attracting more and more attention in present medical education. 8 – 10 …”

“… 7 Given that incorporating medical humanities into a medical school's curriculum promotes the development of empathetic, compassionate, and culturally sensitive physicians, 8 medical humanities are attracting more and more attention in present medical education. 8 – 10 …”

Emphasizing humanities in medical education: Promoting the integration of medical scientific spirit and medical humanistic spirit

“…Since incorporating medical humanities into the medical education curriculum promotes the development of empathetic, compassionate, and culturally sensitive physicians, medical humanities are attracting greater attention as part of current medical education (9,22,23).…”