During the carnivals I read the highly recommended novel by Héctor Abad Faciolince, except my heart, everything’s fine. When I finished it, I had the feeling that the story of the priest Luis Córdoba, protagonist of the work, could be used as a magnificent literary tool for the comprehensive training of health sciences students. Several of the situations that Father Córdoba experiences as a patient, masterfully narrated by the author, motivate reflections, invite to define positions and stimulate curiosity to learn more about the environment in which they develop; an educator can hardly ask for more from a text.
I decided to address this issue in this column because for some three decades, many of the world’s leading medical schools have made curricular modifications to match their strong scientific instruction with training in the fine arts. These institutions now recognize, for example, the role that literature plays in helping to develop a greater sensitivity to the social problems that overwhelm us on a day-to-day basis. Also, when reading selected works, the possibility of exposing students to ethical dilemmas similar to those they will face once they begin their professional practice. Today in these institutions no one disputes that reading good literary works improves communication and teaches storytelling, essential skills in the health professions to successfully interact with patients and their families.
It is also important to highlight the fact that learning to appreciate a good painting or a sculpture of human figures helps in some cases to recognize phenotypic characteristics typical of specific pathologies. In several of the paintings by Miguel Ángel, Velásquez and Rafael, among others, characters with characteristics similar to patients affected by congenital syndromes such as Turner or Down syndrome can be observed. In other works, it is possible to identify what appear to be functional deformations, such as the scoliosis of Donatello’s David, or the limbs of some apostles drawn in Buonarroti’s “The Last Supper”.
Using art as a tool in medical education adds quality to the process. When it is insinuated in the country that doctors will need to be trained everywhere, without envisioning how their comprehensive training will be guaranteed, I think it prudent to remember that phrase by the Catalan doctor José de Letamendi y Manjarrés: “the doctor who only knows medicine; nor does he know medicine ”.
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