Abstract

KOTTOW, Miguel. Humanidades Médicas: ¿Decorativas o substantivas? El caso de literatura y medicina. Rev. Bras. Educ. Med. [online]. 2014, vol.38, n.03, pp.293-298. ISSN 1981-5271.

Medical humanities have been proclaimed as essential in medical training and practice, yet have achieved no more than a fragile position in medical curricula, being understood as “soft” disciplines in comparison to the core curriculum emphasized by evidence-based biomedicine. Based on Whitehead/Latour’s distinction between matters of fact and modes of importance or matters of concern, core curriculum has incorporated medical sociology and medical anthropology as disciplines have been consolidated by empirical knowledge. This paper suggests a third category named “matters of factual concern”, which incorporates disciplines that deliberate over facts - philosophy and the history of medicine. Literature also belongs to this category, in its diverse forms of expression: narrative, essayistic, critical and testimonial. Such disciplines are best imparted as tacit knowledge based on personal interaction.

Keywords : Curriculum; Medical Education; Medical Humanities.

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