Divided into two main sections, the Companion looks at "Reflections" - offers current thinking and definitions within health humanities, and "Applications" comprises a wide selection of a range of arts and humanities modalities from comedy and writing to dancing, yoga and horticulture.
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 is the first manifesto for Health Humanities worldwide. It sets out the context for this emergent and innovative field which extends beyond Medical Humanities to advance the inclusion and impact of the arts and humanities in healthcare, health and well-being.
This authoritative new handbook offers a comprehensive and cutting-edge overview of the state of the medical humanities globally, showing how clinically oriented medical humanities, the critical study of medicine as a global historical and cultural phenomenon, and medicine as a force for cultural change can inform each other. Composed of eight parts, the Routledge Handbook of the Medical Humanities looks at the medical humanities as: a network and system therapeutic provocation forms of resistance a way of reconceptualising the medical curriculum concerned with performance and narrative mediated by artists as diagnosticians of culture through public engagement. This book describes how the medical humanities can be used in and out of clinical settings, acting as a point of resistance, redistributing medicine’s capital amongst its stakeholders, embracing the complexity of medical instances, shaping medical education, promoting interdisciplinary understandings and recognising an identity for the medical humanities as a network effect. This book is an essential read for all students, scholars and practitioners with an interest in the medical humanities.
When a person falls ill, their experience changes - sometimes in a very minor and transient way, sometimes in a decisive and lasting one. 'Diagnosis' is often seen as the process of scientifically and objectively identifying the causes of this subjective experience, but is the process and meaning of 'diagnosis' really as simple as this implies? As this volume of The Medical Humanities Companion argues, diagnoses are an answer to complex human needs that spring from being ill, and are in turn a complex, culturally mediated interaction between individuals, scientific discoveries, social negotiation and historical change. This volume makes visible the complexities and ambiguities involved in giving and receiving diagnoses, and how they shape and are shaped by views on what is real and acceptable, and how people relate to the phenomena of illness.
This Companion offers a thorough, concise overview of the emerging field of humanities computing. Contains 37 original articles written by leaders in the field. Addresses the central concerns shared by those interested in the subject. Major sections focus on the experience of particular disciplines in applying computational methods to research problems; the basic principles of humanities computing; specific applications and methods; and production, dissemination and archiving. Accompanied by a website featuring supplementary materials, standard readings in the field and essays to be included in future editions of the Companion.
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.
In recent decades, both medical humanities and medical history have emerged as rich and varied sub-disciplines. Medicine, Health and the Arts is a collection of specially commissioned essays designed to bring together different approaches to these complex fields. Written by a selection of established and emerging scholars, this volume embraces a breadth and range of methodological approaches to highlight not only developments in well-established areas of debate, but also newly emerging areas of investigation, new methodological approaches to the medical humanities and the value of the humanities in medical education. Divided into five sections, this text begins by offering an overview and analysis of the British and North American context. It then addresses in-depth the historical and contemporary relationship between visual art, literature and writing, performance and music. There are three chapters on each art form, which consider how history can illuminate current challenges and potential future directions. Each section contains an introductory overview, addressing broad themes and methodological concerns; a case study of the impact of medicine, health and well-being on an art form; and a case study of the impact of that art form on medicine, health and wellbeing. The underlining theme of the book is that the relationship between medicine, health and the arts can only be understood by examining the reciprocal relationship and processes of exchange between them. This volume promises to be a welcome and refreshing addition to the developing field of medical humanities. Both informative and thought provoking, it will be important reading for students, academics and practitioners in the medical humanities and arts in health, as well as health professionals, and all scholars and practitioners interested in the questions and debates surrounding medicine, health and the arts.
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine is a comprehensive guide to topics in the fields of epistemology and metaphysics of medicine. It examines traditional topics such as the concept of disease, causality in medicine, the epistemology of the randomized controlled trial, the biopsychosocial model, explanation, clinical judgment and phenomenology of medicine and emerging topics, such as philosophy of epidemiology, measuring harms, the concept of disability, nursing perspectives, race and gender, the metaphysics of Chinese medicine, and narrative medicine. Each of the 48 chapters is written especially for this volume and with a student audience in mind. For pedagogy and clarity, each chapter contains an extended example illustrating the ideas discussed. This text is intended for use as a reference for students in courses in philosophy of medicine and philosophy of science, and pairs well with The Routledge Companion to Bioethics for use in medical humanities and social science courses.