Speakers: Professor the Baroness Onora O’Neill; Rita Charon, MD, PhD; Robert Shulman, PhD
This event sponsored by: The New York Academy of Medicine and the Royal Society of Medicine
Considerations of the interface between the humanities and medicine have become both more complex and more urgent in recent decades as advances in science have allowed progressively deeper understanding of disease mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities. A progressive technologic transformation of clinical practice has followed from these advances. For medical education as well as clinical practice these movements pose important questions around the directions, even the purposes, of medicine, centering on how best to manage responsibilities to the patient as a suffering person and at the same time attend effectively to the disease as a set of disordered biological processes.
Continuing progress is occurring not only in the sciences and the derivative technologies, but also in understanding of the illness experience, the physician-patient dynamic and the importance of social environments as determinants of both.
The question of what the humanities can bring to these issues is the focus of this conference. Emphases have varied—for some the primary focus has meant bringing the range of traditional humanities disciplines—philosophy, history, literature, the arts, narrative—into medical education, while for others primary attention to medical ethics or the behavioral sciences has been sought. Some of these considerations have been gathered under the rubric of humanism in the United States, or patient-centered medicine in the U.K.
This conference will explore the insights, orientations and gifts the humanities hold for medicine as well as their implications for education and clinical care.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 – Plenary Session
5:30pm Welcome
Jo Ivey Boufford, MD
President, The New York Academy of Medicine
Robin Williamson, MD
President, The Royal Society of Medicine
Keynote Address
6:00 pm CP SNOW’S TWO CULTURES FIFTY YEARS ON
Professor the Baroness Onora O’Neill
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge
Chair, the Nuffield Foundation
Introduced by: Professor Williamson
Thursday, October 8, 2009 – Second Plenary Session
8:30 am Welcome
Jo Ivey Boufford, MD
David Misselbrook, MSc, MA FRCGP
Dean, Royal Society of Medicine
Keynote Address
9:00 am WHAT IS IT ALL FOR? THE FUNDAMENTAL GOALS OF HUMANITIES IN MEDICINE
Rita Charon, MD, PhD
Professor of Clinical Medicine
Director, Program in Narrative Medicine, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Introduced by: Dr. Boufford
10:00 am PANEL: THE HUMANITIES AND THE PRIORITIES OF MEDICINE
The Panel will explore the challenges posed by an increasing scientific and technical dominance in medicine and its implications for our priorities. Are we tacitly accepting movement toward a definition of competence that is largely technical? To what extent are traditional responsibilities of the physician for the illness experience of the patient in jeopardy? What can the humanities contribute to our efforts to understand and respond to these questions?
Moderator: Jeremiah A. Barondess, MD President Emeritus, New York Academy of Medicine
John Saunders, MD
Professor, Centre for Philosophy, Humanities and Law in Health Care, University of Wales, Swansea
Alfred Tauber, MD
Zoltan Kohn Professor of Medicine and Professor of Philosophy, Boston University
Albert R. Jonsen, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Ethics in Medicine, University of Washington
Senior Ethics Scholar in Residence, California Pacific Medical Center
12:00 pm Lunch
1:00 pm PANEL: THE DESIRED PHYSICIAN PRODUCT: THE HUMANITIES AND MEDICAL EDUCATION
How should medical education address the issues raised in the two Keynotes and the first panel? How can the humanities help to shape those efforts? What kinds of evidence of their impact should we seek?
Introduced by: Professor Misselbrook
Moderator: Dr. Richard Southby President, Royal Society of Medicine Foundation, Dean Emeritus, School of Public Health, George Washington University
Marcia D. Childress, PhD
Director, Program in Humanities, University of Virginia School of Medicine
John T. Truman, MD, MPH
Professor Emeritus of Clinical Pediatrics, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Raanan E. Gillon, MS, BS, FRCP, BA
Emeritus Professor, Division of Epidemiology, Public Health, and Primary Care and Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics,
Imperial College, London
3:00 pm PANEL: CURRENT EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES TOWARD PROMOTING HUMANISM AND PATIENT-CENTERED CARE
Introduced by: Jordan J. Cohen, M.D.
Professor of Medicine and Public Health, George Washington University
Chair, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation
Moderator: David T. Stern, MD, PhD Vice Chair for Professionalism, Dept. of Medicine, Mt. Sinai Medical Center
Daniel Shapiro, PhD
Chair and Professor, Department of Humanities and the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Professor of Medical Humanism, Penn State University
Elizabeth Gaufberg, MD, MPH
Gold Foundation Assistant Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Alan Bleakley, DPhil, PGDip
Professor of Medical Education/Deputy Director, Institute of Clinical Education
Peninsula Medical School, Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry,
Cornwall, UK
Closing Keynote
4:30 pm PRAGMATISM: A PHILOSOPHY FOR NEUROSCIENCE
Robert Shulman, PhD
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University
Introduced by: Dr. Barondess
5:15 pm Closing Remarks: Dr. Boufford and Dr. Williamson
5:30 pm Adjourn
This program has received generous support from
THE ARNOLD P. GOLD FOUNDATION
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE FOUNDATION
THE AUDREY & WILLIAM H. HELFAND FELLOWSHIP AT THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE
THE GREENWALL FOUNDATION
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