As historians, you both come from an academic field that might seem, at first glance, far from medicine. How did you come to develop an interest in this subject?

AW: Not as far as one might think… History and literature speak to the things that matter most in life, which include care, illness, the satisfactions and challenges of practising medicine. They offer (future) physicians the opportunity to step back, reflect on their vocation, and take a fresh look at the meaning of their professional commitment. They are therefore anything but peripheral: on the contrary, they address the very heart of what it means to be a doctor.

RS: Initially, I wanted to write a history of an emotion – melancholy – a subject that is eminently literary, but also medical. It is impossible to understand the history of melancholy without studying the history of medicine, and that is how I came to medicine. It was a journey of discovery: starting from literature and arriving at medicine, in an era – the Renaissance – when there was not yet any clear boundary between the two. It was through literature that I came to medicine, and through working on medicine that I rediscovered literature. It is within this kind of circular dynamic that I work with my students: film sequences or literary quotations become sources of wonder and debate. 

What does the medical humanities teaching at the Faculty of Medicine involve?

AW: We seek to stimulate discussion and reflection on the doctor-patient relationship, on patients as individuals, on the role of physicians as carers, but also as citizens. The aim is to enrich the purely biomedical perspective to address more broadly the professional questions – which also involve personal choices – that students will inevitably have to confront. Medicine and care touch on multiple dimensions of our lives. The humanities address those dimensions that lie beyond the strictly biomedical approach, and contribute just as much as the more traditional medical disciplines to the training of tomorrow’s physicians. 

RS: The arts, cinema, and the humanities as a whole constitute a remarkable repository of cases ready to be discussed in the classroom. The history of epidemics as drawn from archives and literature, the cultural perception of illness through Hollywood films – all of these bear witness to and shape society and the evolving image of doctors and patients. We focus on the identification or rejection that our students feel when confronted with these works, and we use their reactions as starting points for discussion. Literature, cinema, and the distant past of medicine thus become ‘foreign countries’ to explore and understand. How did physicians of the past come to terms with the death of their patients? How did they manage the frustrations arising from their therapeutic relationships? What stories do ailing bodies tell, from humoral medicine to the techno-solutionist ambitions of transhumanism? 

AW: Indeed, our teaching aligns with one of the Faculty’s strategic priorities: strengthening professional identity and ‘re-enchanting’ medical studies by addressing the fundamental question of the meaning of those studies. It is indeed essential to prepare students thoroughly for the realities of their future career and, perhaps, to reduce the risk of them leaving the profession. Through the richness of the situations it presents, cinema contributes to that preparation.

Why cinema?

AW: Because it is highly effective! Cinema is more in keeping with today’s visual culture and more immediately accessible than, say, a literary text. That does not mean the reflection is easier, but the threshold for engagement is lower. Analysing a clip facilitates discussion, even if some classic films are, to our great surprise, entirely unknown to our students. Philadelphia, for instance, released in 1993, has slipped into obscurity, as has the social and political earthquake that the HIV/AIDS pandemic represented. 

Beyond cinema and television, other visual cultures could also prove interesting, such as video games, which are fond of medical characters – generally very negative, such as mad scientists. These often provide the first introduction to the construction of the image of the physician for younger generations. 

Through these media, the image of the physician tends to be rather black-and-white: either a hero who saves the world, or an absolute villain…

AW: That is precisely what we try to address by offering more nuance. From one year to the next, the films we include cover different aspects: general practitioners as well as specialists, women’s access to the medical professions, and so on. It is true that cinema can sometimes be Manichean or caricatural in its representations. From a pedagogical standpoint, that is no bad thing, as it allows us to deconstruct stereotypes.

RS: One of our objectives is to confront students with realities different from their own – in varied historical, social or fictional contexts, in different eras, or even in different worlds entirely. This compels them to examine their own vision of themselves in their future career. And that vision, that reflection, changes as the years go by. 

How is your teaching received?

AW: Medical studies and careers tend towards progressive specialisation, leaving aside anything that is not immediately applicable. Those who enrol in our optional courses, on top of the compulsory medical humanities teaching, appreciate the diversity of approaches this brings to their studies. The representations conveyed by a medium as powerful as cinema shape the public’s expectations of the profession. Their patients will arrive with preconceptions – sometimes unfair rejections, sometimes unwarranted admiration – shaped by this cultural landscape. Our film-loving students see this as a genuine opportunity to strengthen their training. Unfortunately, others struggle to think about medicine beyond its biological dimension. Yet technical knowledge alone, without moments of reflection and breathing space, may not be the most fulfilling way to put on the white coat.

More broadly, is the concept of Medical Humanities recent?

AW: Medical humanities has established itself in education over the past thirty years or so. It brings together various disciplines from the humanities and social sciences and connects with narrative medicine, an approach based on the principle that we understand our lives as stories in which illness represents a rupture in our narrative coherence. At a time when medicine is tending towards hyper-specialisation, it should be able to grasping humanity in its entirety – with its history, its culture, and its lived experience.

The Students’ Perspective 

“Cinema is a powerful means of conveying a message and emotions. Films can offer a different perspective, one that can complement what we are taught in lectures or on placement. For example, films such as Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), The Elephant Man (1980), or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) help us to better understand what patients may feel and to question certain medical practices. Cinema brings an immersive and personal dimension to stories and thus reinforces the human aspect that lies at the heart of medicine.”
Adrien Huguelet, 2^nd year of Master’s in Medicine

“Cinema, as an art form, reflects an author’s vision rooted in a particular society. I enjoy watching films to admire them, but above all to think. Combining cinema and medicine might seem, at first glance, almost absurd. What could an art form and a science possibly have in common? And yet, this opposition seems to me outdated. The screen allows us to put different points of view into perspective. Through the interplay of images, angles, music and silence, it pushes us to adopt the perspective of the protagonist, who may be a patient, a loved one, a doctor, or simply someone other than ourselves. Beyond mere observation, cinema allows us to reflect on the complexity of relationships and situations in a more human dimension than theoretical knowledge alone. Cinema is for me a passion, but also a precious tool for broadening our perspective and enriching our training as well as our future medical practice.”
Léa Nguyen, 3^rd year of Bachelor’s in Medicine