Medicine and Humanities: removing barriers and the road to the "third culture"

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to provide a brief overview of the Medical Humanities and Health Humanities fields. Using the concept of “interdisciplinarity” as a guiding principle, scientists emphasized the importance of fostering a climate of dialogue and collaboration between applied sciences and the humanities. The facts are presented in the form of a historical retrospective, with the names of the exponents and periodicals that served as "milestones" in the field of Medical Humanities mentioned. The plethora of discussions surrounding the Medical Humanities, of course, further evolves the field's dynamics, prompting many scholars to discuss its evolution into the Health Humanities. This field integrates the humanities and social sciences into medical reality so that health professionals can learn a new way of knowing and practicing in the difficult “arena” of healthcare delivery. In this context, medical schools in American and European universities follow an equivalent interdisciplinary affiliation, introducing courses from the environment of Medical Humanities as well as Health Humanities. In Greece, the humanitarian directions in medical school academic curricula are framed by courses in history of medicine, philosophy of medicine, and medical ethics, which promote a climate of dialogue and interdisciplinary cooperation.

Keywords: Medical Humanities, Health Humanities, Interdisciplinarity, Medicine, Literature