Seven Types of Ambiguity in Evaluating the Impact of Humanities Provision in Undergraduate Medicine Curricula

Knowledge of autism gained by learning from people through a local UK Autism Champion Network: A health and social care professional perspective

LAY ABSTRACT

The Autism Act 10 Years On found few autistic adults thought health and social care professionals had a good understanding of autism. Autism training has been made law in the United Kingdom for health and social care staff to tackle health inequality. The county wide Autism Champion Network evaluated here is an equal partnership of interested staff across sectors (Autism Champions) and autistic experts by virtue of lived experience (Autism Advisory Panel). With knowledge flowing both ways, the Autism Champions take learning back to teams to support continuous development of services to meet autistic need. Seven health and social sector professionals from the Network participated in semi-structured interviews on sharing knowledge of autism gained with their teams. All participants provide care and support for autistic people, some working in specialist positions. Results showed that developing new relationships with people outside their own team to signpost to, answer questions and share resources, and informal learning from autistic people, was more valued and used in practice than information gained from presentations. These results have implications in developing learning for those who need above a basic knowledge of autism and may be useful for others considering setting up an Autism Champion Network.

Medical Humanities Education and Its Influence on Students' Outcomes in Taiwan: A Systematic Review

Background

Medical education has emphasized the importance of integrating medical humanities training into the curriculum to benefit medical and nursing students' future practice, featuring in the list of national funding priorities for healthcare education research in Taiwan for many years. However, the extent to which this drive has resulted in medical humanities training, what rationales underpin its inclusion, and its efficacy is largely unknown. This study aims to address these issues across medical humanities programs within the Taiwanese context.

Methods

We conducted a systematic review. Inclusion criteria included studies in English or Mandarin reporting outcomes of medical humanities courses in healthcare education settings in Taiwan between 2000 and 2019. We searched across five electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, ERIC, PsycInfo, Web of Science), following PRISMA guidelines. The Best Evidence Medical Education (BEME) Global Scale and Kirkpatrick Levels are used for identifying the strength of evidence.

Results

17 articles were extracted from the 134 identified. Intrinsic and instrumental rationales for the inclusion of medical humanities education were common, compared with epistemological-based and critical-based approaches. Several positive impacts were identified in relation to participation including modification of attitudes, knowledge, and skills. However, the highest level (i.e., unequivocal) of evidence characterized by effects on students' behaviors or ongoing interaction with colleagues and patients is lacking.

Conclusion

Findings suggest that although medical humanities education is widely implemented in Taiwan, no clear consensus has been reached regarding the rationale for inclusion or how it is localized from Western to Asian contexts. Future research still needs to explore the long-term impact of medical humanities education for medical and nursing students and its impact on patient care.

Systematic Review Registration

https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO, identifier: CRD42019123967.

'Living in a Material World': Frankenstein and new materialism

This paper uses concepts from Karen Barad's theories from quantum physics and other theoretical approaches from new materialism to show how Frankenstein can be used to introduce this new framework and to challenge an older one based on dualism, representationalism and individualism. A new ethical understanding of the message of the text emerges from this reading-one that rethinks the prohibitions against 'playing God' or creating the unnatural and relies instead on an ethics of care.

Conceptualizing Medical Humanities Programs in Low-Resource Settings in Africa

The role of the humanities in medical education remains a topic of dynamic debate in medical schools of high-income countries. However, in most low- and middle-income countries, the medical humanities are less topical and rarely even have a place in the curriculum. Reasons for this dearth include inadequate resources to support such programs coupled with misapprehension of the role and significance of the humanities in medical education.In this article, the authors argue that the humanities have a vital role to play in the low-resource settings of African medical education. They discuss the complexities of the continent's sociohistorical legacies, in particular the impact of colonization, to provide contexts for conceptualizing humanities programs in African schools. They outline the challenges to developing and implementing such programs in the continent's underresourced medical schools and present these as four specific conundrums to be addressed. As a general guide, the authors then suggest four nonprescriptive content domains that African medical schools might consider in establishing medical humanities programs.The goal is to jump-start a crucial and timely discussion that will open the way for the feasible implementation of contextually congruent humanities programs in the continent's medical schools, leading to the enhanced education, training, and professional development of its graduating physicians.

Medical Humanities Teaching in North American Allopathic and Osteopathic Medical Schools

Although the AAMC requires annual reporting of medical humanities teaching, most literature is based on single-school case reports and studies using information reported on schools' websites. This study sought to discover what medical humanities is offered in North American allopathic and osteopathic undergraduate medical schools. An 18-question, semi-structured survey was distributed to all 146 (as of June 2016) member schools of the American Association of Medical Colleges and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. The survey sought information on required and elective humanities content, hours of humanities instruction, types of disciplines, participation rates, and humanities administrative structure. The survey was completed by 134 schools (145 AAMC; 31 AACOM). 70.8% of schools offered required and 80.6% offered electives in humanities. Global health and writing were the most common disciplines. Schools required 43.9 mean (MD 45.4; DO 37.1) and 30 (MD 29; DO 37.5) median hours in humanities. In the first two years, most humanities are integrated into other course work; most electives are offered as stand-alone classes. 50.0% of schools report only 0-25% of students participating in humanities electives. Presence of a certificate, concentration or arts journal increased likelihood of humanities content but decreased mean hours. Schools with a medical humanities MA had a higher number of required humanities hours. Medical humanities content in undergraduate curriculum is lower than is indicated in the AAMC annual report. Schools with a formal structure have a greater humanities presence in the curriculum and are taken by more students.

Collaboration and Teamwork in the Health Professions: Rethinking the Role of Conflict

Whereas the business professions have long recognized that conflict can be a source of learning and innovation, the health professions still tend to view conflict negatively as being disruptive, inefficient, and unprofessional. As a consequence, the health professions tend to avoid conflict or resolve it quickly. This neglect to appreciate conflict's positive attributes appears to be driven in part by (1) individuals' fears about being negatively perceived and the potential negative consequences in an organization of being implicated in conflict, (2) constrained views and approaches to professionalism and to evaluation and assessment, and (3) lingering autocracies and hierarchies of power that view conflict as a disruptive threat.The author describes changing perspectives on collaboration and teamwork in the health professions, discusses how the health professions have neglected to appreciate the positive attributes of conflict, and presents three alternative approaches to more effectively integrating conflict into collaboration and teamwork in the health professions. These three approaches are (1) cultivating psychological safety on teams to make space for safe interpersonal risk taking, (2) viewing conflict as a source of expansive learning and innovation (via models such as activity theory), and (3) democratizing hierarchies of power through health humanities education ideally by advancing the health humanities to the core of the curriculum.The author suggests that understanding conflict's inevitability and its innovative potential, and integrating it into collaboration and teamwork, may have a reassuring and emancipating impact on individuals and teams. This may ultimately improve performance in health care organizations.

The Medical Humanities Effect: a Pilot Study of Pre-Health Professions Students at the University of Rochester

Qualitative and quantitative research on the impact of medical and health humanities teaching in baccalaureate education is sparse. This paper reviews recent studies of the impact of medical and health humanities coursework in pre-health professions education and describes a pilot study of baccalaureate students who completed semester-long medical humanities courses in the Division of Medical Humanities & Bioethics at the University of Rochester. The study format was an email survey. All participants were current or former baccalaureate students who had taken one or more courses in literature and narrative in medicine, bioethics, history of medicine, and/or visual arts and healthcare during the past four years. The survey gathered numerical data in several areas: demographic information, career plans, self-reported influence of coursework on educational and career plans, and self-reported influence of coursework on intellectual skills and abilities. It also gathered narrative commentary that elaborated on students' responses to the numerically-based questions. Notable findings from preliminary analysis of the data include higher scores of self-reported impact of the coursework on specific habits of mind and on preparedness for intended career rather than on gaining admission to future educational programs. Discussion of the results focuses on several potential future directions this type of study might take, including multi-center, longitudinal, and sequential approaches.