Medicine and literature: writing and reading

The humanities and arts are appropriate areas of study within interdisciplinary medicine. Medicine has long been considered to be both a science and an art. Within each patient, the psychological, emotional, spiritual, and the physical are all inextricably linked. The values, ideas and images of individuals and culture, as well as the way the human body and mind physically function and dysfunction, impinge in an equally inextricable way upon all these elements. The humanities and arts, included within medical study, enable people, the subject of medicine, to be usefully considered in their entirety. Literature has a particularly vital role to play in medicine and health care. It opens up a wealth of experience and knowledge, as well as offering vital understandings of the narrative nature of human lives. A knowledge of the nature of narrative, and the way we understand our lives narratively can be vital for effective communication and understanding of patients' situations. Literature also offers dynamic ethical issues with which to grapple. Expressive and explorative writing is used in professional development, and undergraduate courses. Medical humanities, literature and medicine and narrative medicine are established in the USA and developing fast in Britain.