He has cancer, I’m sorryâ€, the emergency doctor diagnosed a patient who arrived at the hospital with pain. What followed was silence. The sick man stayed there, Andrés, with his wife, not knowing what to say, what to think, in free fall into an existential void, with his life abruptly interrupted. “In a second the world comes to a standstill, family and social life, dreams, plans for the future, everything you know you will no longer do goes through your head…”, explains Elena, now a widow, to an audience of 19-year-old students who are studying the 2nd year of Medicine at Pompeu Fabra and who are following the Humanities elective.
Fortunately, during the three years that Andrés lived with cancer, he had empathetic and compassionate doctors, such as the gastric surgeon Manuel Pera, chief of gastrointestinal surgery at the Hospital del Mar and director of the subject. “He was always there, on weekends, holidays, it was a relief to see him enter the room. He always found the right words to speak to us â€. Or the doctor who attended Andrés in his last moments, of whom he only remembers that her name is SofÃa, who relieved him of the burden of deciding on the possibility of extending the life and suffering of her husband through external means: “It happened to me his arm around his shoulders and he told me: ‘Don’t worry, I’m the one who makes the decisions here’â€.
Elena’s story impacts young people who, by age, probably have few experiences with illness. “Empathy, humanity, are cultivated,” explains the surgeon Pera, promoter of this optional subject, together with Joaquim Gea, professor of physiology and chief emeritus of the pulmonology service at the same hospital, and Jonathan McFarland, president of the association The Doctor as Humanist. The objective of this international movement is to “restore the soul in medicine”, introducing philosophy, literature, art, as well as showing good medical references.
“Art and medicine always went together until the profession became more technical and the doctor moved away from the patient,” briefly summarizes McFarland, a professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, who believes that the computer is increasingly interposed between doctor and patient.
Pera continues explaining to the students: “In few professional relationships, access to intimacy is so quick. The patient grants an act of trust, which entails a great responsibility to the doctor. You have to listen well, not just clinical data, to know how to accompany. You have to read literature to understand the stories – not clinical – behind each patient and always find the right words, â€she advises them.
During the term, students will work on The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Tolstoy, an exemplary work on the relationship between a doctor and a deathly ill judge who expresses his fears and concerns, his vulnerability to the pain and suffering caused by the imminence of death. his death and the disaffection of his family.
But there are other literary jewels, such as Drunk with disease, by Anatole Broyard (The Broken Nail), or Confessions, by Henry Marsh (Salamander), which reflects the ambivalence of giving the patient security while managing the uncertainty of the disease. And specific essays.
Doctor Pera reads them a poem by Jacobo Cortines from Seville that talks about cold spaces, waiting rooms, glass corridors and aseptic paintings.
A student raises his hand, considers that all these recommendations are common sense. The surgeon replies that medical studies are demanding, have an important technical and scientific aspect, that requires a great effort on the part of the student, who ends up neglecting many literary and artistic activities.
The career also neglects – in his opinion – important aspects such as the relationship established with the patient or the assumption of uncertainty. “Machines will not be able to do everything.” The risk is treating pathologies and not patients, he tells them.
“And then, the world of work, with endless days, unbearable waiting lists, guards… an extremely hostile system in which many doctors succumb, who are burned out.” Against all this, he argues, “we cannot give up, if we have to dedicate ten more minutes, let’s do it.” “And that doesn’t wear you out?” asks a boy. “It has a cost, but also a satisfaction.”
70% of UPF 2nd year students have enrolled in this subject. David R. Kopacz, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of Washington, will participate in it, who will explain the factors that lead to loss of compassion. Or Susana Magalhaes, a researcher at the University of Porto, who will present the importance of medical narratives. Precisely, the Porto campus offers Introduction to Poetry and Music as an elective, taught by the poet João LuÃs Barreto Guimarães and the conductor Ariana Dantas, also a guitarist.
The introduction to the humanities in scientific careers is still timid in relation to the expected impact that the digital revolution will have on the professions in a few years. The philosopher Marina Garcés, at the recent University and Culture forum, organized by the Ministry of Universities, held at the CÃrculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, highlighted the divorce between profession and culture and between knowledge and culture. And the risk that the sciences are subjected to excessive scientism, dispossessed of other knowledge, which will make up a different society from the current one.
Some universities are making their way, integrating culture, art and ethics. The Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) opened the UPC-Arts area that works to bring culture closer from multiple perspectives and includes curricular content (students can take credits from the UOC Contemporary Challenges master’s degree) and is promoting the development of doctorates industrialists in cultural entities. Carlos III is also aware of the need to make studies more flexible. Thus, its students, of any specialty, are required to take credits in the humanities, on or off campus.
