Books for doctorlings
Mar. 19th, 2015 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So the medical school is having a drive to encourage students to engage more with arts and humanities, so we don't end up with a lot of future doctors who haven't read a novel since they finished GCSE English. And they're asking for suggestions for books worth recommending to the students.
This seems like an interesting question, so I'm throwing it open to you: if you could recommend one book you'd like your doctor to have read, what would it be? They specify that it doesn't have to be about a directly medical topic, but just something that could help very science-specialized people to understand more about being human. Non-fiction is ok but they want literary non-fiction, things like biographies, rather than textbooks.
My thinking about this is that there's no point recommending the obvious nineteenth century Dead White Men classics, because even if the students were funnelled out of anything to do with literature in their mid teens they're all high achievers, they've almost certainly all "done" Dickens for GCSE and got As for their essays. And even the ones who don't read have read The man who mistook his wife for a hat because various how to get into medical school guides push it as something to mention at interview.
So, suggestions?
This seems like an interesting question, so I'm throwing it open to you: if you could recommend one book you'd like your doctor to have read, what would it be? They specify that it doesn't have to be about a directly medical topic, but just something that could help very science-specialized people to understand more about being human. Non-fiction is ok but they want literary non-fiction, things like biographies, rather than textbooks.
My thinking about this is that there's no point recommending the obvious nineteenth century Dead White Men classics, because even if the students were funnelled out of anything to do with literature in their mid teens they're all high achievers, they've almost certainly all "done" Dickens for GCSE and got As for their essays. And even the ones who don't read have read The man who mistook his wife for a hat because various how to get into medical school guides push it as something to mention at interview.
So, suggestions?
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 02:15 pm (UTC)I went to an engineering school that accidentally had a great English department, and it was criminally under-used by students trying to get as deep an engineering education as possible in the limited time we had. I don't feel like it's an attack on my classmates to say that they chose to focus on their major at the expense of a liberal arts education.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 02:20 pm (UTC)I am in a country where at University you only take courses for your major, by the way. So as a Biology student I could only take Biology/Chemistry/Physics/Maths, while a Philosophy major would have only taken courses in Philosophy/History/Theology for example.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 03:20 pm (UTC)It's a matter of perspective. If you think the arts teach valuable skills that are essential to being a good scientist, maybe. (And maybe liberal arts majors should be taught that mathematical learning is also lifelong.) One of the courses in my college career I am most grateful for is an elective opera appreciation course. I don't know if it made me a better person, but it taught me that I like opera, which I otherwise probably wouldn't have learned. I mean, requiring them to read one extra novel as part of medical school doesn't make it seem like they think it's a big problem, either. Just a small problem worth offering the students an extra tool to deal with.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 06:14 pm (UTC)More, essential to being a good human being, IMO.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 07:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 08:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 06:13 pm (UTC)It's certainly not treated as being as big a problem as it actually is, alas.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 10:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-20 09:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-20 09:48 am (UTC)