Table 1
Epistemic function of arts and humanities teaching for ‘personal insight’ and for ‘social advocacy’ in medical education (adapted and revised from Dennhardt et al. [2])
|
Epistemic function |
Arts and humanities for personal insight |
Arts and humanities for social advocacy |
|---|---|---|
|
Function of arts and humanities that is invoked |
Arts and humanities are expression and can be used for emotional growth, professional identity formation and wellbeing |
Arts and humanities are advocacy and can be used for socio-cultural critique and change |
|
Assumption of what arts and humanities do and how arts and humanities create knowledge |
Engaging with and/or creating art and engaging with the humanities allows students to gain insight into, express and deal with their emotions Arts and humanities can support and protect learners in finding meaning in medicine Arts and humanities can counteract and transform a perceived ‘lifelessness’ of a dominant technical science |
Engaging with and/or creating art and engaging with the humanities allows students to question ‘ways of seeing’ or ‘being’ that are dominant, even oppressive, in medicine, including in medical culture, institutions and systems and including their own ways of ‘seeing’ or ‘being’ that perpetuate such systems Arts and humanities make visible and can change social injustices in medicine |
|
Focus of where arts and humanities do what they do |
Focus on making meaning of the self in the context of a career in medicine |
Focus on future physicians and their role in contexts of cultures, systems and institutions |
|
For whom |
Arts and humanities to express and make sense of human experience and emotions; arts and humanities for personal growth and to humanize doctors and medicine |
Arts and humanities to improve broader systemic challenges |
|
Type of knowledge emphasized |
Knowledge about the self and about ‘how to become’ (and what it means to be) a physician |
Knowledge about how medical culture, systems and institutions benefit some and disadvantage others, and about how one may be complicit with or critical of culture, systems and institutions |
|
Main attention |
Attention to one’s own emotions and experiences through medical training and practice |
Attention to what needs to be changed in medicine (e.g., health disparities), made visible or brought to light |
|
Example |
A mask-making workshop to promote self-reflection, professional identity formation and self-care |
An art exhibit to critically engage with issues of bias and stigma in patient care |
|
Typical language terms |
Wellbeing, wellness, burnout, self reflection, meaning, becoming, growth, emotions, expression, resilience |
Critical reflection, social (in)justice, society, diversity, equity, inclusion, assumption(s), bias(es) |