ABSTRACT
The health humanities are often regarded as a type of intellectual and emotional balm, a salve that may be spread liberally, not only over the injuries from disease but over the dehumanising wounds caused by health care. Those wounds are inflicted by implicit biases, stigmatisation, inequities in treatment, unequal access to services, the impersonal conveyor belt-like character of patient care—and by the brutalising influences of training in the health professions. In contrast, the health humanities have been viewed as a way to get back in touch with our emotional selves, our humanity, to rekindle our sense of purpose and idealism in serving others. The humanities—the creative visual arts, literature, music, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and history—have been advocated as a means of teaching empathy and communication and observation skills, increasing self-reflection and reflective practice, and enhancing the wellbeing of health professionals. While these goals are all laudable, the predominance of biomedical, technico-rational ways of knowing in health professions education and health care has frustrated their realisation.
