Many of my patients don’t know that, in addition to my medical degree, I also have a master’s degree in English literature. As an English major during my undergraduate studies, I had always wanted to study both literature and medicine.
These fields have a lot of overlap. When we first meet with patients and ask them to tell us about their medical conditions, we’re really asking them tell us their stories. What happened? What brings them to us today? What does their condition mean in the context of their lives?
The better we can understand and relate to these stories, the better doctors we become.
How the literature and medicine track works
I started the literature and medicine track at the Georgetown University School of Medicine in 2014 We began as an elective class, but the student response was so positive that the courses expanded it into its own program. It’s the country’s first dedicated literature and medicine track.
Students enrolled in the program work on special projects and meet once a month throughout their four years in medical school. At these meetings, we discuss works of fiction and how they can apply to our experience as physicians and medical students. In their third and fourth years, students have an additional meeting once a month with my colleague, Dr. Dennis Murphy, to discuss medical narratives – nonfiction writings that describe experiences in health care.
This program gives aspiring young doctors helpful tools to manage the greatest challenges in medical education: student burnout and their ability to remain connected to others.
Burnout
Burnout, or exhaustion caused by overwork and stress, is a serious problem among doctors and medical students alike. In a 2008 study, nearly 50 percent of medical students at seven U.S. medical schools reported feelings of burnout. And a 2012 study indicated that nearly 46 percent of doctors surveyed reported at least one of the symptoms of burnout, including:
- Physical and/or mental exhaustion
- Feelings of detachment or inability to connect with patients
- Feelings of hopelessness or ineffectiveness
There are several ways to deal with burnout, including relying on a support system of friends and family members, as well as support from medical schools. And several studies have looked at involvement in the humanities—art, music and other ways of documenting the human experience—as ways to decrease burnout. For example, 62 percent of medical students reported in a 2013 study that a humanities journal could prevent burnout.
As of September 2017, we’re studying the literature and medicine track at Georgetown to see if our students’ experiences with avoiding burnout match what students at other institutions have reported. Based on the responses we’ve gotten so far, I expect we’re going to show that our program has had a substantial impact in this area of medical education for our students.
Cognitive empathy
Cognitive empathy, or recognizing and understanding the perspectives of other people, is another benefit of the literature and medicine track. Studying literature helps medical students understand other people by empathizing with characters and their struggles.
