title: Medical humanities in nursing: thought provoking?
abstract: Medical humanities is an innovative way of learning. Discussing literary texts of nursing practice has been used to help students analyse attitudes, values and ethics; it has also been used to help practitioners review and reflect on their own experience and philosophy of nursing. In nursing education, it has been used to explore difficult issues in a safe environment. The value of this approach in nursing education and practice is that it can encourage reflection, promote self-awareness and stimulate debate on difficult issues: for example, death and dying, power and institutionalization (of patients and staff) and pain. This paper gives a detailed worked example of how a literary text can be used in this way, the aim being to provide a resource which readers can then use with a group of students or colleagues. Finally, the authors explore the question of where medical humanities might have a place in the curriculum: as a lecture/tutorial in a course (e.g. Ethics), as a module in the curriculum, as a method of teaching nursing subjects (e.g. communication skills), as a discussion group (outside the curriculum), as a study guide, using literary texts alongside nursing text books. Any of these strategies can be a powerful vehicle for preserving the 'human factor' in both nursing education and continuing professional development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing Studies, University of Glasgow, Scotland.
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Robb
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Murray
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D003479:Curriculum; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000592:standards*; D006126:Group Processes; D006809:Humanities; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D008091:Literature; D012660:Semantics; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology; D013561:Symbolism; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods