There is now a context for teaching humanities in undergraduate medical education via special
study modules (SSMs). This paper discusses the instrumental and non-instrumental role …

An important role for the medical humanities is to stimulate imaginative insight into the lives
and experience of others through literature and other art forms. The idea is that such …

Breath is invisible and yet ever present and vital for living beings. The concept of invisibility
in relation to breath operates in concrete and metaphorical ways to extend ideas about …

These eminently practice-centred objectives require, of course, to be approached in the
spirit of what we might call ‘‘interdisciplinary theory’’, that is, theoretical reflection on …

Purpose – This review article seeks to draw on experience in the UK to describe the different
forms that arts in health activity can take and to examine the challenges for research in this …

The field of arts and health, and associated academic discussion, is beset by a number of
interlinked challenges which make it vulnerable to academic dismissal or, at best, poor visibility…

The review highlights the need for integrated multidisciplinary work on breathlessness, and
suggests that effective understanding and management of breathlessness considers its …

There is a widespread view that modern medicine is primarily a scientific enterprise and that
the decisions of clinicians follow from evidence-based science. In terms of this view the …

Purpose Measuring professional behavior is problematic not least because the concept of
professionalism is difficult to define. The authors describe a measurement tool that does not …

Medicine is predicated on a view of human nature that is highly positivist and atomistic. This
is apparent in the way in which its students are taught, clinical consultations are structured …