Body & Soul
The Medical School's new arts and humanities center aims to feed the soul of those who care for the body.
The news from poems—This fragment of a poem by William Carlos Williams would be a perfect medical school course title, says Mary Faith Marshall, Ph.D., director of the new Center for Medical Humanities and the Arts at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
It is difficult, Williams wrote, to get the news from poems/Yet men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there.
That is to say, poetry may be less practical than the news, yet our spirits are diminished for want of it. Williams, who was a doctor by day and poet by night, understood the importance of ministering to both body and soul.
Feeding the soul of those who care for the body is the new center's mission. To that end, Marshall and Jon Hallberg, M.D., the center's medical director, will forge links between the Medical School and the College of Liberal Arts, and draw on the resources of the Twin Cities' vibrant arts community. Their task is to make room for the right brain in the left brain–dominated world of medicine.
"Medicine is not just about science," says Deborah Powell, M.D., dean of the Medical School, which provides funding for the center. "Medicine is about human beings caring for the health and wellness of other human beings." The arts and humanities are key to nurturing, what Powell calls "the humanness of medicine."
Both Marshall and Hallberg credit Powell for supporting the center, which is currently housed in the Center for Bioethics, where Marshall has a part-time appointment as a professor. "I loved the idea of this center," Powell comments. "Deans can supply resources, but it takes dedicated faculty champions to make something happen."
A new focus
Nationally, the idea of injecting a dose of humanities into the medical curriculum coincided, some 50 years ago, with a movement toward primary and patient-centered care. Over the next 30 years, more than 90 U.S. medical schools introduced the humanities into their medical curricula, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Many of the early programs had a literary bent. One of the best known, the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University in New York, required all second-year medical students to study literary texts as a way of learning to “read” their patients' stories. Proponents contend that honing a literary sensibility enhances one's clinical skills. In theory, a doctor who can read fiction is better prepared to listen and follow the narrative thread of a patient's story. Similarly, it has been argued that learning to view a painting can sharpen a physician's observational skills.
Minnesota's program will expand on those early ideas, says Hallberg. "Mary Faith and I are trying to break the mold. We don't want our program to be like any other."
"We want to effect a culture change—to expand our notion of health and social justice," adds Marshall, who is also a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and associate dean for social medicine and medical humanities in the Medical School.
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Harambee!
Harambee is Swahili for let's all pull together. It's also the name of an arts celebration that has become a medical student tradition at the University of Minnesota.
"We were trying to find a word that encompasses culture, the arts, and the theme of unity and community," says Cuong Pham, who, along with fellow medical student Quy Ton, came up with the idea for an arts forum for medical students. "We realized a lot of medical students had talent but no chance to showcase it."
With the backing of the Student National Medical Association and the American Medical Student Association, Harambee was born five years ago. Several hundred students gathered for the first Harambee in Coffman Memorial Union Theater for performances in operatic theater, hip-hop, piano, and the spoken word. University pediatrician Robert Fisch, M.D., displayed his artwork, as did local photographer Wing Young Huie.
Five years later, Harambee has expanded to include dance, film, and crafts. With its mission to bring diversity, reality, empowerment, and relaxation into students' lives, Harambee exemplifies the kind of program the University's new Center for Medical Humanities and the Arts wants under its umbrella, says Jon Hallberg, M.D., the center's medical director.
"Students would still lead Harambee," says Hallberg, "but the center could give it a home. It's a perfect fit."