Books for doctorlings

[liv]

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?

Comments

[seekingferret]

And for what it's worth, speaking as an engineer who reads, I know lots of engineers and scientists and doctors who don't.

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.

[yvi]

Sure there are some (I only know engineers like that, though, not doctors/scientists) . Is that in itself something that needs to be fixed? People with a liberal arts education also usually do that at the expense of a scientific and mathematical education, but that doesn't seem to be treated like it's some kind of big problem.

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.

[seekingferret]

Is that in itself something that needs to be fixed?

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.

[rysmiel]

If you think the arts teach valuable skills that are essential to being a good scientist, maybe.

More, essential to being a good human being, IMO.

[seekingferret]

And here I side with yvi that the implication of that statement is that scientists are less human, which is very insulting.

[rysmiel]

That certainly wasn't the intent; I speak as a working professional scientist myself. I am firmly of the opinion that overspecialisation in any field is problematic, and that more general education is actively preferable. I apologise for my phrasing suggesting that scientists are less human; the intended meaning was that the skills acquired from education in the arts are of benefit to a person irrespective of whether that person happens to be a scientist or not, and their merits should not be assessed solely on whether they make a person who happens to be a scientist a better scientist or not.

[rysmiel]

People with a liberal arts education also usually do that at the expense of a scientific and mathematical education, but that doesn't seem to be treated like it's some kind of big problem.

It's certainly not treated as being as big a problem as it actually is, alas.

[davidgillon]

Agreed, there's some horrendously ignorant stuff comes out of parliament wrt STEM - demanding every school be above average on maths teaching being one of the more egregiously wrong!

[vatine]

I'd be happy if half of them manage to be above the mean (approximately half should already be above the median).

[davidgillon]

Exactly!