Literary inquiry has been a part of the curriculum at many North American medical schools for more than 30 years. Ostensibly its original purpose was to "humanize" the overstuffed, science-based curriculum. Since then, other rationales for its place…
This is the story of one medical educator's attempt to combine literary and epistemological inquiry in a 4th-year elective called Women's Health: Views from Literature, Communities, and Clinical Medicine. The assumption fueling this attempt was that…
This essay is my attempt, via autobiographical theorizing, to weave together personal narratives from within the academy and those from without, to illuminate events in the life of an academic woman in an environment that fosters aggression,…
Background: The literature consistently reports that sexual harassment occurs with regularity in medical education, mostly in clinical settings, and most of it goes unreported. Reasons for nonreporting include the fear of retaliation, a reluctance to…
The topic of developing professionalism dominated the content of many academic medicine publications and conference agendas during the past decade. Calls to address the development of professionalism among medical students and residents have come…
The humanities offer great potential for enhancing professional and humanistic development in medical education. Yet, although many students report benefit from exposure to the humanities in their medical education, they also offer consistent…
Twenty-eight years after the United State Supreme Court issued its landmark Roe v. Wade, the struggle continues to ensure that all women have the full range of reproductive choices, including abortion. While the struggle can be addressed through its…
Arnold Relman argues that medical education does not prepare students and residents to practice their profession in today's corporate health care system. Corporate health care administrators agree: Physicians enter the workforce unskilled in contract…
INTRODUCTION: Upon designing and implementing a literature course on family values for Year 4 medical students, we found that while the supposed benefits of literary inquiry were to lead students to a deeper understanding of difficult issues such as…
Background: The literature consistently reports that sexual harassment occurs with regularity in medical education, mostly in clinical settings, and most of it goes unreported. Reasons for nonreporting include the fear of retaliation, a reluctance to…
The use of simulation and standardized patients in medical education is firmly established. In this 'point-counterpoint' format we debate not their important function but the extent to which they are used to establish 'evidence' for trainees'…
CONTEXT A study of medical students' perspectives on derogatory and cynical humour was published in 2006. The current study examines residents' and attending doctors' perspectives on the same phenomenon in three clinical departments of psychiatry,…
CONTEXT: Negative role modeling is a plague medical educators fight once students enter the clinical arena. The literature is replete on the fact that students routinely encounter faculty who display attitudes and behaviors inconsistent with the…
This essay describes three movements in art–impressionism, cubism, and abstract expressionism–and how artists within each movement differed in their portrayal of reality. With this background, the author proposes that inquiry into the motives and…
In contemporary North American cultures, menopause is primarily thought of as a deficiency disease. In literature, however, authors often portray menopause differently. In various literary portrayals, menopause evokes themes of the urgency of…
White coat ceremonies are a recent phenomenon in medical education. Selected as a symbol by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation to impress upon medical students the importance of compassion and humility, the white coat has had a long association with all…
This essay explores how breast cancer and mastectomy are portrayed in twentieth-century North American literature. The purpose in doing so is to examine our understandings of how women in contemporary North American culture may experience this…
PURPOSE: The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify the complex issues facing Asian/Pacific Islander (API) women students at one Midwestern medical school as they subjectively experience their medical training. Of particular interest was…
The authors propose that professionalism, rather than being left to the chance that students will model themselves on ideal physicians or somehow be permeable to other elements of professionalism, is fostered by students' engagement with significant,…
