Can the arts promote more humane health professionals? Exploring evidence from the neurosciences

Abstract

The Sri Lankan health profession is in urgent need of being more humane, compassionate and empathic. This requires education to widen its scope than medical ethics and communication skills. Medical Humanities is one such interdisciplinary fields that draws on the creative and intellectual strengths of diverse disciplines related to the humanities, including, but not limited to philosophy, ethics, literature, art, creative writing, drama, film, music, anthropology, and history. The challenge is the use of these diverse fields in a creative manner to achieve the goal of developing more humane health professionals.