Medicine, Health and the Arts ─ Approaches to the Medical Humanities

In recent decades medical humanities and medical history have both emerged as rich and varied sub disciplines. Medicine, Health and the Arts is a collection of specially commissioned essays designed to bring together different approaches to these complex fields. Written by a selection of established and emerging scholars in the field, this volume embraces a breadth and range of methodological approaches to highlight not only developments in well-established areas of debate (for example arts therapies), but also tracing newly emerging areas of investigation, such as graphic medicine, new methodological approaches to the medical humanities, and the value of the humanities in medical education.

Divided into five sections, this text begins by offering an overview and analysis of the British and North American context, and then addresses in depth the relationship between art, literature and writing, drama, and music, and how this history can illuminate current challenges and potential future directions. Each part contains an introductory overview, addressing broad themes and methodological issues; a ‘case study’ of the impact of the art on medicine, health and well-being; and another case study of the reverse. The underlining theme of the book is that the relationship between medicine, health and the arts can only be understood by examining the reciprocal relationship and processes of exchange between them.

This volume promises to be a welcome and refreshing addition to the developing field of medical humanities. Both informative and thought-provoking, it will be important reading for students, academics and practitioners in the medical humanities and arts in health, as well as health professionals, and all scholars and practitioners interested in the questions and issues surrounding medicine, health and the arts.

Victoria Bates is a Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Bristol, UK.

Alan Bleakley is Professor of Medical Education and Medical Humanities at Plymouth University Peninsula School of Medicine, UK.

Sam Goodman teaches contemporary literature at the University of Exeter, UK.