Incorporation of social sciences and humanities in the training of health professionals and practitioners in other ways of knowing
Keywords:
Africa, Asia, Education, Medical, Nursing, Epistemology, Health Sciences, Humanities, Latin America, Social SciencesAbstract
It would appear that education in health sciences is currently focused primarily on instilling effective scientific, cognitive and technical competencies in health professionals and practitioners; it is not according the same level of importance to personal, relational, ethical and moral competencies. This review supports the quest for greater balance in biomedical and healthcare education by incorporating social sciences and humanities. It also argues that this is an urgent teaching and training task, especially in the developing world (Africa, Latin America and Asia). It is of critical importance to understand that matters of health and disease/illness are not only about the 'disease in the body' but also about the 'disease in the body of the person suffering', and that these two ways of knowing (epistemologies) or world-views have different implications in the health sciences education process. Lastly, as an ethics of care, the understandings afforded by these more inclusive approaches of the social sciences and humanities should not be a privilege confined to medical schools.
Downloads
References
Rabow MW, Remen RN, Parmelee DX, Inui TS. Professional formation: extending medicine's lineage of service into the next century. Acad Med. 2010;85(2):310–7. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20107361
Alderson P. The importance of theories in health care. BMJ. 1998;317(7164):1007-10. Available from: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1114019&tool=pmcentrez&rendertype=abstract
Moreno-Leguizamon CJ, Spigner C. Theory, Research and Practice in Public Health. In: Stewart J, Cornish Y, editors. Professional Practice in Public Health. Devon, UK: Reflect Press Ltd;2009. P.11-37.
Jones-Devitt S, Smith L. Critical Thinking in Health and Social Care. London: Sage Publications Ltd;2007.
Ghaemi SN. The rise and fall of the biopsychosocial model. Br J Psychiatry. 2009;195(1):3-4. Available from: http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/195/1/3
The world health report 2000 – Health systems: improving performance. Geneva: World Health Organization;2000 [cited 2015 Sep 25]. Available from: http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/
Babatunde T, Moreno-Leguizamon CJ. Daily and cultural issues of postnatal depression in African women immigrants in South East London: Tips for health professionals. Nursing Research and Practice [Internet]. 2012 [cited 2015 Sep 25]. doi:10.1155/2012/181640
Kleinman A. Four social theories for global health. Lancet. 2010;375(9725):1518-9. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20440871
Kleinman A. Borderlands: professional life lived precariously but happily in anthropology and medicine. Med Humanit [Internet]. 2009 [cited 2015 Sep 25];35(1):6. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23674624
Muncey T. Mixing art and science: A bridge over troubled waters or a bridge too far? J Res Nurs. 2006;11(3):223-33. Available from: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/244918995_Mixing_art_and_science_A_bridge_over_troubled_waters_or_a_bridge_too_far
Tovar-Restrepo M. Castoriadis, Foucault, and Autonomy: New Approaches to Subjectivity, Society, and Social Change (Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy). New York: Bloomsbury Academic; 2014.
Ramaswamy R. “Medical humanities†for India. Indian J Med Ethics. 2012;9(3):144-147. Available from: http://www.issuesinmedicalethics.org/index.php/ijme/article/view/96
Gupta R, Singh S, Kotru M. Reaching people through medical humanities: An initiative. J Educ Eval Health Prof [Internet]. 2011 [cited 2015 Apr 28];8:5. Available from: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=3110875&tool=pmcentrez&rendertype=abstract
Singh N. Whither medical humanities? Indian J Med Ethics. 2012;9(3):166-9. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22864074
Supe A. Medical humanities in the undergraduate medical curriculum. Indian J Med Ethics. 2012;9(4):263-5. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23099601
Borsay A. Humanidades médicas: orÃgenes y destinos. Ars medica. Revista de humanidades. 2007;6(1):138-46. Spanish.
Mezzich JE. The Geneva Conferences and the emergence of the International Network for Person-centered Medicine. J Eval Clin Pract [Internet]. 2011 [cited 2015 Sep 25];17(2):333-6. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21114715
Hurwitz B, Charon R. A narrative future for health care. Lancet. 2013;381(9881):1886-7. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23725717
Narrative Medicine Conference [Internet]. London: King's College London;c2015 [cited 2015 Sep 25]. Available from: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/chh/Narrative-Medicine-Conference-/About-the-Narrative-Medicine-conference.aspx
Moreno-Leguizamon CJ. Ayurveda, Biomedicine, and Indigenous Medicine: Three Medical Discourses, One Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing;2012.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2015 Carlos J Moreno-Leguizamon, Jennifer J Patterson, Alexander Gómez Rivadeneira
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Articles published in the journal RHiME are covered by the Creative Commons License [Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)]
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after publication in the Journal, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as greater citation of published work.
