RESUMO
This paper explores the historical and contemporary significance of medical humanism and its potential value in medical education. Medical humanities emerged as a response to the issues arising from science-driven modern medicine, most notably the marginalization of the individual in medical practice. Medical humanism has evolved to become a guiding ideology in shaping the theory and practice of medical humanities.However, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about significant changes in medical humanities, challenging the foundations of humanism beyond medical humanism. The rise of posthumanism raises fundamental questions about humanism itself. The climate crisis, driven by human greed and capitalism’s exploitation of nature, has led to the emergence of viruses that transcend species boundaries. The overflow of severely ill patients has highlighted the classic medical ethics problem of “who should be saved first” in Korea, and medical humanism is facing a crisis. Various marginalized groups have also pointed out the biases inherent in medical humanism.With this rapidly changing environment in mind, this paper examines the past and present of medical humanism in order to identify the underlying ideology of medical humanism and its future potential in medical education. This paper assumes that there are two axes of humanism: human-centeredness and anthropocentrism. Medical humanism has historically developed along the axis of human-centeredness rather than anthropocentrism, emphasizing the academic inquiry into human nature and conditions, as well as the moral element of humanity.Furthermore, this paper discusses the challenges that medical humanism faces from post-human centeredness and post-anthropocentrism, as well as the recent discourse on posthumanism. Finally, the implications of this shift in medical humanism for the education of the history of medicine are briefly explored.
RESUMO
In this article, we will examine the theory and practice of encounters between oral history and narrative medicine in view of storytelling. Man is a storytelling animal. Our experience is understood, reconstructed and transmitted as a story and we can find the meaning of life through a story. Oral history is a specific practice and method of research. It refers to the process of recording interviews with people who have something to say, transcribing the record and interpretating the written text to conduct the study of the past. Therefore story is a basic tool of oral history. There has been also growing interest regarding the narrative features of medicine. Especially the illness narrative is one of the most powerful tools in this context. An illness narrative is a patient's story about his illness, including the meaning of the illness in his life. Illness as a specific event of life can only be understood through a story of patient. How can we combine oral history and narrative medicine altogether? We propose two subjects, one is 'healing' and the other is 'the social'. The goal of medicine is healing of suffered people. It is well known that storytelling has a healing effect. Conducting oral history is not only 'recovery history' but also is helping people to have a well organized memory and integrate that into his whole life story. The use of oral history as a means of empowerment should be extended referring the healing effect of medicine. On the other hand, modern medicine has a tendency to reduce the problem of health and illness as an individual one. However story of illness can reveal the dominance of modern biomedicine in the contemporary and have political implications. Oral history deals with memory. Personal memory can only be understood in the context of social and cultural backgrounds. Collective memory is necessary in building community history. Medicine should learn from oral history's social dimensions. In this context, life of KIM Hyeongyul who was activist for second generation Korean Atomic Bomb Victims will be a good example of encounters between oral history and narrative medicine.