In autumn 2006, the UCSF "Medical Humanities Working Group" invited essays from medical students to tell us what value they saw in promoting the medical humanities within the curriculum. The response was fantastic and the points of view insightful. We've selected just a few quotations to reproduce here, but we encourage others to share their views by emailing one or all of the members of the working group:

Dr. Louise Aronson, MD (Medicine/Geriatrics)
Dr. Brian Dolan, PhD (Anthropology, History & Social Medicine)
Dr. Guy Micco, MD (Joint Medical Program, UC Berkeley)
Dr. John Tercier, MD, PhD (Anthropology, History & Social Medicine)

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“I believe that the true value of the humanities to our profession, is not so much how it fine-tunes our clinical acumen, but rather how it can broaden our perspective beyond a purely clinical, scientific mindset to see our profession, ourselves, and our patients in a different light.” (JMP, MSI)

“… the medical humanities provides the time and space to reflect on clinical experiences in med school [and] the opportunity to write NOT in cold clinical style.” (MS IV)

“The purpose—and the gift—of the humanities in medicine, is twofold: it is at once the opportunity to discover beauty in the art and science of healing as well as the chance to bring to bear on the patient-healer encounter the beauty available elsewhere in life.” (UCSF MSII)

“The medical humanities find new ways to impart ideas and enthusiasm in medicine, that which is beaten out of you over four years!” (MS IV)

“… to place the project of medicine within the context of the broader project of human civilization and striving—this too seems an integral part of the necessary skill set for medicine …” (JMP, MSI)