Establishing a Medical Humanities Program in Israel: Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

In the 2007–8 academic year, the Hebrew University – Hadassah Medical School established a three-year Medical Humanities program. We developed a spiral curriculum addressing three main concepts: moral reasoning, professionalism, and the social and cultural context of medicine, each of which is revisited during the entire period of studies on a higher level. The courses—encompassing topics applicable to medicine in general as well as subjects of special significance to physicians in Israel—are taught in a combination of frontal lectures, small group discussions, and early clinical exposure. Our interdisciplinary faculty includes physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, lawyers and members of the Faculty of Humanities. We believe that teaching the medical humanities enables graduating physicians to utilize the latest scientific and technological knowledge more empathetically and humanely, reminding them that medicine is not confined to mere tending to the sick, but includes an ethical philosophy common to all physicians who remain true to their art.

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the Adam U’Refuah Program Coordinators Dr. Miriam Philips, Dr. Rebecca Brooks, Dr. Anna Woloski-Wruble, Dr. Michal Luria, Mrs. Naama Weitchner, Mrs. Estelle Rubinstein and Dr. Ruth Kannai—for their valuable contributions. The authors also thank Professor Alfred Tauber for proposing to us his “Who am I, What am I, Where am I” concept.

Notes

1. Manisha Nair and Premila Webster, “Education for Health Professionals in the Emerging Market Economies: A Literature Review,” Medical Education 44.9 (2010): 856–63.

2. Claudia Kiessling et al., “A Medical Humanities Special Study Module on Principles of Medical Theory and Practice at the Charité, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany,” Academic Medicine 78.10 (2003): 1031–35.

3. Martyn Evans, “Reflections on the Humanities in Medical Education,” Medical Education 36.6 (2002): 508–13.

4. Ronald M. Harden and N. Stamper, “What Is a Spiral Curriculum?” Medical Teacher 21 (1999): 141–43.

5. Troy Brennan et al., “Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium: A Physicians Charter,” for the ABIM Foundation, ACP-ASIM Foundation and European Federation of Internal Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine 136.3 (2002): 243–46.

6. Christine Laine and Frank Davidoff, “Patient-Centered Medicine: A Professional Evolution,” Journal of the American Medical Association 275.2 (1996): 152–56.

7. Alan B. Jotkowitz, Shimon Glick, and Avi Porath, “A Physician Charter on Medical Professionalism: A Challenge for Medical Education,” European Journal of Internal Medicine 15.1 (2004): 5–9; A. Peter Singer, “Strengthening the Role of Ethics in Medical Education,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 168.7 (2003): 854–55; Wally R. Smith et al., “Recommendations for Teaching about Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health and Health Care,” Annals of Internal Medicine 147.9 (2007): 654–65; Anne Stephenson, Roger Higgs, and Jeremy Sugarman, “Teaching Professional Development in Medical Schools,” Lancet 357.9259 (2001): 867–70; Howard Waitzkin, “Doctor-Patient Communication: Clinical Implications of Social Scientific Research,” Journal of the American Medical Association 252.17 (1984): 2441–46.

8. Michael A. Ainsworth et al., “Standardized Patient Encounters: A Method for Teaching and Evaluation,” Journal of the American Medical Association 266.10 (1991): 1390–96; Clare Knowles et al., “A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effectiveness of Combining Video Role Play with Traditional Methods of Delivering Undergraduate Medical Education,” Sexually Transmitted Infections 77.5 (2001): 376–80.

9. Chantal Brazeau, Linda Boyd, and Jesse Crosson, “Changing an Existing OSCE to a Teaching Tool: The Making of a Teaching OSCE,” Academic Medicine 77.9 (2002): 932.

10. Ronald M. Harden, “Assessment of Clinical Competence Using an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE),” Medical Education 13.1 (1979): 41–54.

11. Brigitte Maheux et al., “Influence of Premedical Preparation in the Humanities and Social Sciences on Attitudes towards Patient Care: A Study of Quebec Medical Students and Recent Graduates,” Academic Medicine 67.10 Suppl. (1992): S25–27.

12. Samuel J. Huber and Matthew K. Wynia, “When Pestilence Prevails … Physician Responsibilities in Epidemics,” The American Journal of Bioethics 4.1 (2004): w5–11; Avraham Weinrib, “Memoirs of a Vilna Ghetto Doctor” (in Hebrew), Yalkut Moreshet 23.1 (1979): 7–60; Daniel S. Nadav, Medicine and Nazism (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Press, 2006).

13. Mia Svantesson et al., “Interprofessional Ethics Rounds Concerning Dialysis Patients: Staff's Ethical Reflections before and after Rounds,” Journal of Medical Ethics 34.5 (2008): 407–13.