So there are a gaggle of literary magazines at UIC, and I'm certainly interested in submitting something to them, but have no idea what to submit. Really my drive is the tattered pieces of my humanities degree screaming for reaffirmation. And I don't blame that part of my brain, since medical school has a way about quashing creativity in its more basic forms. If medical school was a tv commercial, it would certainly be the mac and PC commercials with medical school being the PC, trying to make a pie chart to represent fun.
In all honesty, though, there has been a lot of debate about medical school's shift to requiring some sort of humanities or social sciences in their entry requirements. And lots of students have objected to this for whatever reasons. What has stood out to me is the argument that the humanities aren't an indicator of a well rounded person, or that the humanities can't offer any discernible tools to a doctor's milieu.
Well, for starters, if you don't understand why learning about humanities makes you a more well rounded person, you probably aren't very well rounded in the first place. Not to sound like a jackass, but life wasn't meant to be observed though a single logical scientific lens; not all truth is found on the stage of a microscope, or in statistically significant data. You cannot run a student's T test to understand the significance of a Pollack, or the beauty of Giotto's scrovegni chapel. Nor can you gain an appreciation of racial tensions without a few social science classes.
So how is it applicable to medicine? Why would it be necessary to have these requirements? Well, when's the last time you had a riveting discussion about mitochondria at a party outside of medical school? Now think about the last time you talked music with someone casually. Now recall that part of being a doctor is being able to relate to thousands of people over the course of your career, many of whom have never taken a science class. Not good enough? Have you ever tried to explain color, light, mood, tone or emotion of a painting or song before? It presents wholly unique challenges that force the brain to look beyond numbers and facts. Abstract thought is essential in medicine, but isn't taught at the bench. But I digress.
Point being life without depth is boring, and I might claw my eyes out unless I let my brain chew on something that doesn't involve alphabet soup of scientific acronyms. Wanna fight about it?
