The Second Pillar: Nurturing Medical Education with the Spokane Medical Humanities Committee By Jeremy Graham, DO - writing for the Spokane Medical Humanities Committee
Sir William Osler referred to Science and the Humanities as the “Twin Pillars” necessary to hold up the House of Medicine. The Spokane Medical Humanities Committee is dedicated to keeping the “second pillar” of Humanities structurally central as medical education grows in Spokane. The committee First-year medical student Jackie has worked over the past several Bolt tests the new stethoscope she received during her years to facilitate opportunities for orientation in August. reflection and insight into medicine for students and residents. The goal is to remind our trainees continually to perceive the patient as a fellow human being, and not just a data point. For the past two years, a Spring Term Humanities in Medicine course entitled “Becoming a Physician” has been a popular selective for the first year WWAMI medical students at WSUSpokane. Drawing on the history of medicine, reflective writing, film, ethics, and discussion seminars, students find a grounding and context for their demanding science courses: the goal of becoming a compassionate physician. This year by the students’ request, the course is expanding into two terms, gaining dedicated time for arts and humanities in the fall, and the history of medicine and ethics in the spring. Elements developed in the students’ course are now also modified and integrated into the Internal Medicine and Transitional Year residents’ curricula. In May 2013, the Spokane faculty group released the newest teaching-module on the Annals of Internal Medicine’s teaching website, entitled “The Prison Patient.” (see http://annals.org/public/onbeingdoctor. aspx). One of Spokane’s own internal medicine residents is also credited among the authors of this newest ACP teaching module. Using recorded narratives from the ACP “On Being A Doctor” collection, faculty facilitate seminar discussions and workshops on themes such as truth-telling, breaking bad news, professional burnout, and the values and pitfalls of medical paternalism.
However, the most important output of our medical humanities efforts in Spokane is coming from residents and students. In separate efforts, The Spokane Medical Humanities Committee invites students and residents to submit reflective essays about the experiences of “Becoming a Doctor”. This work is felt to be important enough that the Shikany Foundation in conjunction with the Spokane Humanities committee now offers a cash award to a student and to a resident for the top-ranked essays annually. The quality and depth of these essays has overwhelmed the judging panel, and many of the essays not selected for the prize are being encouraged for publication independent of the Spokane Committee prizes. Spokane Medical Humanities Committee has also worked with Spokane Society of Internal Medicine (SSIM) to launch the annual SSIM Osler Award, a recognition for humanism and the “Oslerian Virtues” at the bedside. While recognition exists elsewhere for high grades or leadership achievements, a medical community which values professionalism, altruism, compassion and empathy in a physician should honor the physician publically. Nomination forms for the annual Osler Award can be found at the SSIM website, and all physicians involved with teaching and the internal medicine community are encouraged to nominate a student, resident, and practicing community physician as an exemplar who teaches us all values through actions. In future action plans, much is afoot for medical humanities in Spokane’s immediate future: a medically-themed film outing night at the Magic Lantern; a new History of Medicine selective for the medical students; and a forthcoming didactic series to teach bedside observation through the arts and humanities for Spokane’s first-year residents. A new curricular project through WSU-Spokane will collect data about empathy-development scores among trainees. Of great delight to the Medical Humanities Committee, the medical staffs of both DMC and SHMC have committed funds to the Committee for purposes of an ambitious humanities and ethics conference and event to be held in Spokane, bolstering this expansion of our medical learning community. As medical education grows in Spokane, the time has come to guarantee that both pillars are developed to support the House of Medicine in Spokane.
Since writing is an important part of the reflective process, the faculty group have modeled this behavior by publishing humanities materials in Cell 2 Soul, Annals of Internal Medicine, American Journal of Medicine, and invited commentaries as far as the International Journal of Dermatology.
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