by Jennifer Wallis, Richard Bellis, Sally Frampton, and Gina Hadley
On 22 January 2025, we welcomed a group of 24 people to Harris Manchester College in Oxford to discuss the challenges faced by medical humanities scholars who teach in medical schools.
Several excellent networks already exist that bring together those working in the medical humanities, such as the Northern Network for Medical Humanities, but as a group we have been especially interested in the specific experiences of those who undertake regular teaching within medical schools or faculties. Our own experiences of teaching in the medical schools of Imperial, St Andrews, and Oxford brought us together, as we had all reached out to one another in search of advice. This workshop was to be a networking and scoping event, judging whether there was an appetite for a network specifically dedicated to a group like us, and how such a network might be practically useful.
The day kicked off with some reflections from Alan Bleakley (University of Plymouth), based on his extensive research in the field of medical humanities. His thoughts on the sustainability of medical humanities programmes – often championed within medical schools by one or two enthusiastic members of staff – immediately focused everyone’s attention before we began our discussions across five workshop sessions.
The first session, skilfully chaired by Luca Di Gregorio (University of Southampton), addressed the role of humanities scholars in medical schools today. Talking points included the erasure of subject-specific expertise in job titles foregrounding ‘Medical Humanities’; the necessity of being receptive to the changing needs of medical education; the possibility of humanities staff being involved in medical curriculum design, and the difficulty of demonstrating the practical, professional ‘value’ of the humanities via short-term survey methods like the NSS. An interesting and unexpected diversion came in a discussion of the value of stories, as useful ways for medical students to imagine their own position within the history of medicine, but also powerful learning tools in the form of, for example, patient testimony.
Patient testimony was the focus of our second workshop, delivered by Sally Frampton, Gina Hadley – and Expert Patient Tutor (EPT) Sally Bromley who brought the patient experience – from the University of Oxford. The co-delivery with patients at Oxford was praised by attendees for its innovative nature, putting students into conversation with patients in traditional settings such as OSCE exams, but also in places like Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, where students went on a tour of different ‘stations’ addressing topics around death and dying. The Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare at the University of Leicester also merited special discussion for its student-selected component where students can work alongside patients in art therapy classes.
After a buffet lunch where we explored the College grounds (including an exhibition on Oxford pottery), we reconvened for two parallel workshops on the practicalities of teaching: one addressing humanities in the core medical curriculum, the other in intercalated degrees. Chaired by Richard Bellis (St Andrews) and Giskin Day (Imperial) respectively, common points cropped up, such as perceptions of the medical humanities as a ‘soft’ option or ‘add-on’ to core medical teaching, the availability of administrative support, the difficulties associated with navigating unwieldy teaching committee structures, and finding suitable second markers for humanities assessments. One participant suggested that many problems were related to broader competing ideas of what medical humanities was ‘for’: to make better clinicians, to create medical humanists, or to deliver humanities-based skills training? Another challenged us to take the lead in making changes at our schools to build humanities throughout the curriculum.
In our final workshop on assessment, chaired by Vinod Patel (University of Warwick), we collated suggestions of current assessments people used as well as how they can be linked to medical curricula and the General Medical Council’s Outcomes for Graduates. Then, we gathered for a final wrap-up. For many, the day had highlighted the huge variance between institutions, in terms of types of medical humanities teaching offered but also the financial and administrative support given to them, which was sometimes contingent on the support of a few clinical colleagues. We also noted a tension between the research interests and activities of many participants and their employment on teaching-only contracts. Yet all agreed that we had valuable contributions to make to medical education, not least in terms of highlighting the constructed nature of scientific and medical knowledge.
It was gratifying to find that there was a clear appetite for a network for medical humanities scholars teaching in medical schools. Over the next few months we plan to set up a mailing list, as well as organise a second event, this time online to encourage wider participation. We have also launched a survey aimed at better understanding the roles of medical humanities-trained scholars currently teaching in medical schools in the UK: please get in touch with Richard Bellis (rtb8@st-andrews.ac.uk) for more details on how to participate. Other practical suggestions, such as study days on particular themes, were made by participants and we’re excited to see this network grow. At a time when humanities provision is being drastically cut, it is more important than ever to demonstrate the importance of such teaching and provide proper support for teachers, both within medical education and beyond it.
This event was generously supported by a University of Oxford Strategic Innovation Fund grant, led by Prof. Gabriele DeLuca (Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience).
Caption and image credit: L-R: Gina Hadley, Sally Bromley, and Sally Frampton discuss patient experience. Photo: Luca Di Gregorio