Boundaries of Humanities: Writing Medical Humanities

Literature and medicine is a discipline within medical humanities, which challenges medicine to reconfigure its scientific model to become interdisciplinary, and be disciplined by arts and humanities as well as science. The psychological, emotional, spiritual and physical are inextricably linked in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Arts and humanities in higher education 2008-06, Vol.7 (2), p.131-148
Main Author: Bolton, Gillie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Creative Writing
Figurative Language
Humanities
Interdisciplinary Approach
Literature
Medicine
Reflection
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Summary:Literature and medicine is a discipline within medical humanities, which challenges medicine to reconfigure its scientific model to become interdisciplinary, and be disciplined by arts and humanities as well as science. The psychological, emotional, spiritual and physical are inextricably linked in people, inevitably entailing provisionality, disturbance and lack of certainty, and lack of closure and therefore of control. Arts and humanities approaches can foster significant interpretive enquiry into illness, disability, suffering, and care. Reflective expressive writing, undertaken and engaged with critically, and particularly when explorative of narrative and metaphor, can enable professionally developmental enquiry into values, ethics, identity and responsibilities. This article offers examples of reflexivity, reflection, and disciplined questioning of the narrative and perspectival nature of medical and healthcare clinicians' experience. Creative writing is a focus, as art can observe and connect from unconventional angles.
ISSN:1474-0222
1741-265X
DOI:10.1177/1474022208088643