LITERATURE AND MEDICINE – THE CHALLENGE OF MEDICAL HUMANITIES
LITERATURE AND MEDICINE – THE CHALLENGE OF MEDICAL HUMANITIES

Summary/Abstract: Using literature as a teaching method for medical students represents one of the challenges of medical humanities. In our medical schools, medical humanities is not part of the academic curricula, but foreign language teachers have found ways to introduce topics of discussion with students. These topics are meant to make our students understand the role of literature (fiction) in their profession. Fiction represents experience, hearing and living the story of your fellow being. By being able to access the most intimate places of human nature, doctors can develop better skills to deal with their patients. In order to illustrate these ideas, we have taken some examples from the Romanian literature, starting with the old ballads, “Mioritza” and “The Arges Monastery” which are considered representative for our mentality and psychology. Nonetheless, the examples go on with some contemporary authors whose works illustrate the function of fiction in such contexts: students may better understand specific social, political or historical contexts and, at the same time, they can see how a story can give you a new perspective upon things, paying attention to any attempts of the narrator to manipulate or hide things. All these are meant to explain some features that would make them understand better the psychology of the Romanian patient who seems to be overlooked when discussing mainly about globalization, intercultural contexts and cultural differences.

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