Developing Humanistic Competencies Within the Competency-Based Curriculum
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Developing Humanistic Competencies Within the Competency-Based Curriculum SATENDRA SINGH, UPREET DHALIWAL AND NAVJEEVAN SINGH From the Health Humanities Group, University College of Medical Sciences (University of Delhi) and GTB Hospital, Delhi, India. Correspondence to: Dr Satendra Singh, Department of Physiology, University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi 110 095, India. [email protected] We herein, describe the rationale, content, methodology and evaluation of a health humanities module in the new competency-based curriculum, and share our experience of the same. Providing training in health humanities to the healthcare trainees will definitely go a long way in having a professional and responsive Indian medical graduate, who is able to provide empathetic and holistic healthcare to all sections of the society. Keywords: Cultural diversity, Disability studies, Medicine in the Arts, Narrative medicine, Patient advocacy, Professionalism. Published online: September 5, 2020; PII: S097475591600236
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he humanities being incorporated in medical education is a relatively newer concept in our country. There are various reasons that prompted the authorities to consider using the humanities in medical teaching: student burnout, mental health issues, and suicides; faculty and provider burnout; student anecdotes about faculty teaching by humiliation; provider-patient encounters resulting in miscommunication; missing empathy and poor communication skills; violence perpetrated by patients’ relatives; and public displays by providers showing unprofessionalism and unethical behavior [1-4]. Clearly, conventional medical education methods were lacking a critical humanitarian element [5]. These observations confirm the intuitive rationale for the inclusion of the humanities in health professions education (HPE) – “to educate for sensitivity so that we do not produce [providers] who place cases and smart diagnoses before persons and feelings” [6]. THE EVOLUTION OF MEDICAL HUMANITIES The Flexner report revolutionized medical education in the US in 1910, but 15 years later, Abraham Flexner was appalled that students had no grounding in the humanities before they arrived for medical training [6]. Historian George Sarton coined the term ‘medical humanities’ in the US in 1947. The first department of humanities was established in 1967 at Pennsylvania State University’s College of Medicine, and the first Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical branch in Galveston a few years later [6]. The UK joined the movement by organising the first UK medical humanities conference in 1998 [6]. INDIAN PEDIATRICS
In India, University College of Medical Sciences was the first medical college to document introduction of humanities to medical students, faculty and non-teaching staff through the creation of a Medical Humanities Group (now called Health Humanities Group) in the year 2009. Other Indian institutions that followed this lead in the initial years were Jorhat Medical College, Assam; Seth GS Medical College
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