(1) Humanities and the Illness Experience (literature, film, the creative arts, poetry, narrative medicine) are intended to elevate student appreciation of the subjective experience of illness in the lives of patients, their families, and caregivers. Only by closely observing the illness experience can students begin to connect with patients as persons, replete with narratives of hope, anxiety, fear, love, loss, meaning, goals, culture, and treatment preferences. Student attentiveness to this narrative opens up the possibility of their encountering patients not just biologically, but as persons rather than mere puzzles. This awareness is at the very center of the art of medicine, of healing in any full sense of the word, and it naturally enlivens deeper empathic capacities.
(2) Virtues (empathy, compassion, respect, humility, justice, loyalty, benevolence, diligence) all unfold from the uptick in narrative consciousness made possible through detailed humanistic observation. For empathic care to be sustained over the course of a career the professional virtue of self-care is also important. The humanistic virtues build the secure relational foundation of trust that is needed for good communication with patients, and for effective ethical decision making.
(3) Clinical Ethics (attentive listening, , respect for autonomy, empathic communication, confidentiality, patient advocacy ) is more than the application of a set of principles or procedures for approaching the challenging decisions that patients, families, and caregivers confront daily. Clinical ethics requires a close attentiveness to the humanistic as well the scientific details of each case, a skill that can be finely honed through the medical humanities. Empathic virtues as habits of daily clinical interaction create a safe space for meaningful dialogue with patients around their values, goals, and choices in which their autonomy is respected. These humanistic assets can be developed as workable communicative skill sets with both cognitive and affective dimensions. Clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, and provider meaning and well-being are all enhanced when ethical decision making proceeds in the context of the humanistic virtues.
Our three concentric circles exist in a surrounding field of healthcare systems including the healthcare system and finance, health law and policy, justice and access to care, the science of compassionate care and posthumanism. Compassionate care drives clinicians and students toward concern for justice according to patient need. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote famously of “the love that does justice.” Often patients are as stressed by navigating insurance and the healthcare system as they are by their illness itself. Clinicians committed to the good of patients are driven by compassion to advocate for access to needed medications and other necessary treatments, as well as ultimately to matters of population health.
Message from the Director
Dear Friends:
There is a place where the human side of medicine is elevated, examined, and revered. Our Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics, situated in the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine, is devoted to training medical students and health professionals as well as conducting high impact research and scholarship in the three thematic components reflected in its name. While we maintain and develop curricula on these three themes with a primary focus on the medical school, we are also actively engaged in undergraduate and graduate teaching across the university.
News
What We Get When We Give
Harvard Medicine
October 2023
The Circle of Change
Jeffrey S. Trilling, MD
Outskirts press
March 2023
An interview with Jack Coulehan, author of The Talking Cure: New and Selected Poems
Bellevue Literary Review
February 2023
Book Review for Imperfect Knowledge by Dr. Richard Bronson
Family Medicine
January 2023
Expanding Schwartz Rounds at Stony Brook
Carol Gomes, CEO Blog
October 2022
Joining Humanity and Science: Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics
in Medical Education
Stephen G. Post & Susan W. Wentz
Summer 2022
The Health Benefits of Gratitude
Oprah Daily
November 2, 2021
Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics Practices the Art
of Healing
Stony Brook University
October 20, 2021
Dignity for Deeply Forgetful People
Stephen Post, PhD
Johns Hopkins University Press
2022
Renaissance School of Medicine Wins Award for Professionalism
Stony Brook University
February 5, 2020
Upcoming Events
SPECIAL TOPICS- S. Rebecca Stephen
"Food (and Water) for Thought: Language Variations in the Description of Life-Sustaining
Nutrition and Hydration"
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
3:30pm- 5:00pm
Location: HSC, Level 3, Lecture Hall 6
RSVP here
GRAND ROUNDS- Salvatore Mangione, MD
"Remembering the White Rose: How 6 Medical Students Took on Hitler"
Thursday, January 18, 2024
4:30pm- 6:00pm
Location: Zoom (please RSVP for link)
RSVP here