LITERATURE AND MEDICINE - CONTRIBUTIONS TO CLINICAL-PRACTICE

Introduced to U.S. medical schools in 1972, the field of literature an d medicine contributes methods and texts that help physicians develop skills in the human dimensions of medical practice. Five broad goals a re met by including the study of literature in medical education: 1) L iterary accounts of illness can teach physicians concrete and powerful lessons about the lives of sick people; 2) great works of fiction abo ut medicine enable physicians to recognize the power and implications of what they do; 3) through the study of narrative, the physician can better understand patients' stories of sickness and his or her own per sonal stake in medical practice; 4) literary study contributes to phys icians' expertise in narrative ethics; and 5) literary theory offers n ew perspectives on the work and the genres of medicine. Particular tex ts and methods have been found to be well suited to the fulfillment of each of these goals. Chosen from the traditional literary canon and f rom among the works of contemporary and culturally diverse writers, no vels, short stories, poetry, and drama can convey both the concrete pa rticularity and the metaphorical richness of the predicaments of sick people and the challenges and rewards offered to their physicians. in more than 20 years of teaching literature to medical students and phys icians, practitioners of literature and medicine have clarified its co nceptual frameworks and have identified the means by which its studies strengthen the human competencies of doctoring, which are a central f eature of the art of medicine.