Humanism in global oncology curricula: an emerging priority

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Oncology
• Humanism in Medicine

Background:

• Humanistic training enhances patient care, shared decision-making, and navigation of healthcare systems.
• The biomedical model's dominance may limit attention to humanistic competencies in global oncology curricula.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the integration of humanistic competencies within global oncology curricula.
• To analyze the extent and nature of humanism in cancer care education worldwide.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 17 global oncology curricula, coding 7792 items for humanistic content using the iecares framework.
• Humanistic items were further categorized by specific attributes (e.g., Respect, Compassion) and mapped to the CanMEDS competency domains.

Main Results:

• Only 10% (780 of 7792) of curricular items aligned with the iecares humanism framework.
• Humanistic content increased from 3% in older curricula to 11% in recent ones, with Respect, Compassion, and Empathy being the most represented attributes.
• Humanistic items predominantly fell under the CanMEDS Professional, Medical Expert, and Communicator domains.

Conclusions:

• While humanistic competencies are growing in global oncology education, their overall proportion is low.
• Current humanistic content largely reflects a Western view of healthcare humanism.
• The focus of humanism in these curricula is primarily on Respect, Compassion, and Empathy.