Tools, Tonic, and Transformation: History, Humanities, and the Arts in Medicine

In times of crisis or major change in medicine, humanities broadly speaking has often been seen as an answer to the question of how to keep the profession centered on human experience. We are currently in the midst of another major crisis in medicine with escalating levels of physician burnout and patient dissatisfaction. No one would disagree that we need to educate physicians who are empathetic. However, most of the emphasis on using humanities to help has centered on the idea that students can be essentially inoculated against the socialization in medicine that, unchecked, will lead to a lack of empathy and connection to patients. This article reviews the limitations of isolating humanities interventions to the medical school years, as well as the narrow justification for history, humanities, and arts in medicine as tools for making better doctors. It then explores the ways in which history, humanities, and the arts can serve as a kind of tonic, a form of healing or antidote, to help the people who are practicing amidst the challenges of contemporary medicine. More boldly, this article makes the argument that history, humanities, and the arts can move beyond individuals to help us transform medicine itself.