Abstract
Medical humanities are becoming increasingly recognized as positively impacting medical education and medical practice. However, the extent of medical humanities teaching in medical schools is largely unknown. We reviewed medical school curricula in Canada, the UK and the US. We also explored the relationship between medical school ranking and the inclusion of medical humanities in the curricula. We searched the curriculum websites of all accredited medical schools in Canada, the UK and the US to check which medical humanities topics were taught, and whether they were mandatory or optional. We then noted rankings both by Times Higher Education and U.S. News and World Report and calculated the average rank. We formally explored whether there was an association between average medical school ranking and medical humanities offerings using Spearman's correlation and inverse variance weighting meta-analysis. We identified 18 accredited medical school programmes in Canada, 41 in the UK, and 154 in the US. Of these, nine (56%) in Canada, 34 (73%) in the UK and 124 (80%) in the US offered at least one medical humanity that was not ethics. The most common medical humanities were medical humanities (unspecified), history, and literature (Canada); sociology and social medicine, medical humanities (unspecified), and art (UK); and medical humanities (unspecified), literature and history (US). Higher ranked medical schools appeared less likely to offer medical humanities. The extent and content of medical humanities offerings at accredited medical schools in Canada, the UK and the US varies, and there appears to be an inverse relationship between medical school quality and medical humanities offerings. Our analysis was limited by the data provided on the Universities' websites. Given the potential for medical humanities to improve medical education and medical practice, opportunities to reduce this variation should be exploited.
Highlights
A growing number of studies have suggested that teaching medical humanities has a range of benefits[1,2] including better grades,[3,4] less burnout,[5,6] improved clinical judgement,[7] better critical appraisal skills[8] better prepared students for real life careers in medicine,[10] enhanced medical professionalism,[11] greater empathy,[12] and appreciation that patients' problems go beyond their biology.[13]
We used similar methods to survey whether medical humanities were part of the curricula in three English-speaking countries: Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States
17 in Canada, 38 in the United Kingdom, and 117 in the United States were ranked by at least one ranking system and we were able to ascertain the number of humanities and whether they were compulsory or not
Summary
A growing number of studies have suggested that teaching medical humanities has a range of benefits[1,2] including better grades,[3,4] less burnout,[5,6] improved clinical judgement,[7] better critical appraisal skills[8] (including about wider problems such as overdiagnosis9) better prepared students for real life careers in medicine,[10] enhanced medical professionalism,[11] greater empathy,[12] and appreciation that patients' problems go beyond their biology.[13]. We are aware of one study that examined the prevalence of teaching medical humanities in Spain and Italy,[20] but there are none in the United States or other English speaking countries. To overcome this gap, we used similar methods to survey whether medical humanities were part of the curricula in three English-speaking countries: Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States
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