Medical humanities in nursing: thought provoking?

Medical humanities is an innovative way of learning Discussing literary texts of nursing practice has been used to help students analyse attitudes, values and ethics, it has also been used to help practitioners review and reflect on their own experience and philosophy of nursing In nursing education, it has been used to explore difficult issues in a safe environment The value of this approach in nursing education and practice is that it can encourage reflection, promote self‐awareness and stimulate debate on difficult issues for example, death and dying, power and institutionalization (of patients and staff) and pain This paper gives a detailed worked example of how a literary text can be used in this way, the aim being to provide a resource which readers can then use with a group of students or colleagues Finally, the authors explore the question of where medical humanities might have a place in the curriculum as a lecture/tutorial in a course (e g Ethics), as a module in the curriculum, as a method of teaching nursing subjects (e g communication skills), as a discussion group (outside the curriculum), as a study guide, using literary texts alongside nursing text books Any of these strategies can be a powerful vehicle for preserving the human factor’ in both nursing education and continuing professional development