Medical Humanism in the Posthuman Era: A Critical Examination of its Past, Present, and Future.

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.

Study of nonsynchronous online teaching of regional anatomy for international students integrated with medical humanities and local culture during COVID-19 pandemic.

PURPOSE: The COVID-19 pandemic imposed unexpected disruptions to anatomical educational practice, the teaching of regional anatomy for international students which has changed to an online format and faces various challenges. The challenges include creating online education homogeneous/equivalent to offline education, introducing local culture to international students, and educating students in medical humanities and ethics. METHODS: To address these problems, the teaching staff integrated medical humanities and local culture into nonsynchronous online teaching of regional anatomy. RESULTS: The nonsynchronous online teaching with interpreted videos of dissections does not significantly affect the experimental and total scores of regional anatomy courses for international students. Integrating medical humanities and local culture into this teaching model is appreciated by them and also has a good teaching effect. CONCLUSION: Students not only gained professional knowledge but also obtained enhanced exposure to local culture and professional spirit from this regional anatomy education.

Virus versus humanity - Do vaccines tilt the scale?

S Srinivasan in his article "The vaccine mandates judgment: Some reflections", in this journal, analyses a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in summer this year [1]. Therein, he underscores significant points of interest, the logic behind them, a few points of contention, their scientific basis and areas where logic defies rationality and prudence. Nevertheless, certain relevant points about vaccination are overlooked in the article. Under the subheading, "Vaccine mandates and the right to privacy", the author states that the order "finally zeroes in on this proposition…and that is that the risk of transmission of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV-2) virus from unvaccinated individuals is almost on par with that from vaccinated persons". Therefore, when the immunisation does not serve the social purpose of stopping propagation of the infection, why should the authorities mandate people to accept vaccination? This is the argument put forth by the author.

Translating COVID-19: From Contagion to Containment.

This article tests the hypothesis that all pandemics are inherently translational. We argue that translation and translation theory can be fruitfully used to understand and manage epidemics, as they help us explore concepts of infectivity and immunity in terms of cultural and biological resistance. After examining the linkage between translation and coronavirus disease from three different yet interlinked perspectives-cultural, medical, and biocultural-we make a case for a translational medical humanities framework for tackling the multifactorial crisis brought about by the SARS-CoV-2 infection. This innovative entanglement of perspectives has the merit of carving out a new space for translation research at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities, providing sustainable ways to conceptualize the production of science at times of crisis, and challenging conventional views of translation as a primarily linguistic and cultural phenomenon that traditionally does not engage with science.

Design, implementation, and reflections on a two-week virtual visual arts and medicine course for third- and fourth-year medical students.

BACKGROUND: Medical humanities courses that incorporate the visual arts traditionally require in-person instruction and visits to museums. The COVID-19 pandemic afforded medical educators a unique opportunity to implement and evaluate virtual visual arts programming. METHODS: A two-week, 7-module visual arts and medicine elective course for third and fourth-year medical students was conducted virtually in the Spring of 2021. The course included traditional didactic components as well as a range of hands-on creative art activities including painting, graphic medicine, photovoice, and Kintsugi (Japanese craft). Digital tools including Canvas, Google Jamboard, and Zoom facilitated student engagement. Student feedback was collected through anonymous post-course surveys. RESULTS: We successfully conducted a virtual visual arts and medicine elective which integrated hands-on creative art activities. Most students "strongly agreed" that remote instruction was sufficient to meet course objectives. However, all students also "agreed" that in-person instruction may promote more in-depth engagement with the visual arts. The hands-on creative art activities were appreciated by all students. CONCLUSION: Visual arts-based medical humanities courses can be delivered virtually and can include hands-on creative art activities such as painting. Future visual arts and medicine courses may benefit from incorporating a range of pedagogical methodologies, digital tools, control groups, and pre-/post-course assessments.

[Humanities, social sciences, and the COVID-19 Pandemic: an extraordinary mobilization]. / Les sciences humaines et sociales face à la pandémie de COVID-19 : une mobilisation extraordinaire.

This contribution presents the dynamics generated by the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020 in the humanities and social sciences (SHS) in France. It first describes the main elements of the individual and institutional involvement that give this dynamic the characteristics of an "extra-ordinary" mobilization. Based on a collective research report, it goes on presenting the research themes and issues, as well as the methodological and epistemological reflections put forward by the SHS on the subject of the pandemic and its management. This contribution thus gives an account of the way in which the SHS participate in a social and political understanding of health issues. By carrying out research themes and issues that are sometimes new and sometimes deeply rooted in the scientific capital that is theirs concerning health and environmental crises, the SHS bring their contribution to the description and the analysis of the foundations and consequences of these crises on individuals and societies: knowledge likely to enlighten public decision-making.

COVID-19 narratives and layered temporality.

The essay outlines the ways in which narrative approaches to COVID-19 can draw on imaginative literature and critical oral history to resist the 'closure' often offered by cultural representations of epidemics. To support this goal, it analyses science and speculative fiction by Alejandro Morales and Tananarive Due in terms of how these works create alternative temporalities, which undermine colonial and racist medical discourse. The essay then examines a new archive of emerging autobiographical illness narratives, namely online Facebook posts and oral history samples by 'long COVID' survivors, for their alternate temporalities of illness.

Health Humanities in Medicina: The Auxiliary Stance.

At the core of medicine is the idea to help fellow human beings by improving or even restoring their health [...].

Lecturers' information literacy experience in remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The advent of coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, continues to trigger several important disruptions/innovations in practically every sector around the world. Additionally, the impacts are predominant in certain educational systems and in creating opportunities. Previous studies had addressed possible effective methods in handling distant learning and student interactions. This qualitative study explored lecturers' information literacy experience during online classes as a result of the pandemic. Semi-structured interview techniques were applied among participants, made up of 15 lecturers in the Humanities Faculty, Diponegoro University, Indonesia, and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data obtained. The results showed the focus of lecturers' information literacy experience was primarily on student interactions and knowledge of various online learning platforms. However, information repackaging was a significant initial consideration during virtual classes, after identifying salient student characteristics. In summary, the present study have contributed to the theoretical understanding of information literacy and may be of benefit to the teaching faculties for enhancing teaching and learning activities, as well as providing student support.

Vaccination conspiracy beliefs among social science & humanities and STEM educated people-An analysis of the mediation paths.

Understanding vaccine hesitancy is becoming increasingly important, especially after the global outbreak of COVID-19. The main goal of this study was to explore the differences in vaccination conspiracy beliefs between people with a university degree coming from different scientific fields-Social Sciences & Humanities (SH) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The study was conducted on an online convenience sample of respondents with college and university degrees in Croatia (N = 577). The results revealed that respondents educated in SH proved to be more prone to vaccination conspiracy beliefs. The indirect effect through science literacy was confirmed, while this was not the case for the indirect effects through health beliefs (natural immunity beliefs) and trust in the healthcare system. However, all three variables were important direct predictors of vaccination conspiracy beliefs. Female gender and religiosity were positively correlated with vaccination conspiracy beliefs, while age was not a statistically significant predictor. The authors concluded by emphasizing the necessity of the more theoretically elaborated approaches to the study of the educational and other socio-demographic differences in vaccine hesitancy.

It's about time: on the need of a temporal language for ecologically dimensioned medical humanities and public health scholarship.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted multiple system dependencies that urge us to rethink our relationship with other humans, non-humans and their various environments. Whereas a growing body of literature highlights the need for ecologically dimensioned medical humanities, focusing on where and how our healths unfold relationally through their ecologies, this paper argues that little attention has been paid to the when of health. In reply, this paper sets out to expand this understanding, first by grounding the ecological argument for medical humanities in a wider net of relational ontologies, and second by highlighting the need to think temporally, specifically multitemporally, about the relationalities of health. The paper advances the sociological concepts of 'time' and 'temporalities' to help us think about various tempi, rhythms, urgencies and legacies of how health unfolds unevenly into the future.

A Study of Differences in Compulsory Courses Offering Medicine Humanization and Medical Communication in Polish Medical Schools: Content Analysis of Secondary Data.

Medical humanity is an essential element of medical education, and the respective courses are introduced to the curricula of medical schools worldwide. However, significant differences in this type of medical education were identified in Italy, Spain, and the UK. In Poland, this issue was not yet analyzed. The classes offered on a compulsory and not elective basis secure the uniform skills of future physicians. Therefore, we were prompted to ask a question: do Polish medical students receive equal compulsory education in medical humanities? To answer that question, we performed a content analysis of mandatory classes' frequency, types, and content on medical humanization and communication in Polish medical schools. The study used publicly available information provided on the home pages of the universities to perform content and comparative analyses. Of 22 identified universities, 15 had publicly listed teaching programs, and nine had freely available syllabi. The names and types of courses varied from school to school. The number of hours the courses offered throughout medical education ranged from 15 to 216. In some medical schools, the classes were scheduled during the early, pre-clinical part of the study, whereas in other schools they were offered each year. The content of the courses always covered the topics of physician-patient communication but rarely offered protocols, such as the Calgary Cambridge guide. We conclude that the medical humanities represented by medical humanization and communication courses are included in the publicly available compulsory curriculum of most Polish medical schools. However, to secure equal education of future Polish physicians, there is a need to unify the medical humanities program.

"Now I know how to not repeat history": Teaching and Learning Through a Pandemic with the Medical Humanities.

We reflect on our experience co-teaching a medical humanities elective, "Pandemics and Plagues," which was offered to undergraduates during the Spring 2021 semester, and discuss student reactions to studying epidemic disease from multidisciplinary medical humanities perspectives while living through the world Covid-19 pandemic. The course incorporated basic microbiology and epidemiology into discussions of how epidemics from the Black Death to HIV/AIDS have been portrayed in history, literature, art, music, and journalism. Students self-assessed their learning gains and offered their insights using the SALG (Student Assessment of their Learning Gains), describing how the course enhanced their understanding of the current pandemic. In class discussions and written assignments, students paid particular attention to issues of social justice, political context, and connections between past pandemics and Covid-19. Student responses indicate enhanced understanding of the scientific and medical aspects of epidemics and also increased appreciation of the insights to be gained from the medical humanities. We discuss co-teaching the class during a real-time, twenty-four-hour-news-cycle pandemic, and the ways in which that experience underlines the value of a "critical medical humanities" approach for undergraduates.