Is medicine a “cultural good”?

Evans, H Martyn

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2005.tb06542.x

Topics

Modern medicine’s picture of human nature offers challenges and opportunities to the humanities

There is much talk these days about “the medical humanities”, although we still await agreement on its meaning and importance. I think the key lies in appreciating how medicine and the humanities share in an endeavour larger than either alone — the endeavour of understanding the human condition. In this, medicine and the humanities have much to offer each other. My framework begins with an observation about knowledge, scientific and otherwise.

Snow College, University of Durham, Stockton on Tees, UK.

Correspondence: h.m.evans@durham.ac.uk

Acknowledgements:

This article is based on material from keynote addresses to the Conference on Medicine and the Humanities, Sydney, NSW, 5–6 November 2004, and the Association for Medical Humanities, Swansea, UK, 19–21 July 2004.

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