Title : Integrating undergraduate health humanities education as a collaborative approach to compassionate, transformational healthcare
Abstract:
Background: The healthcare environment remains complex, with countless challenges, which greatly impact the healthcare system’s ability to meet the unique needs of the populations they serve. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) called for healthcare systems to employ a collaborative, practice-ready workforce. To meet this call, preprofessional education needs to be reimagined. The NAM recommends a shift in health professional education, teaching the human dimensions of care and developing professionals who provide interdisciplinary, patient-centered care as a critical step toward transforming healthcare delivery. Since early 2000, the National League for Nursing (NLN) and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) have emphasized the need for art and humanities curricula in undergraduate nursing education as foundational requirements. Universities have long required students to complete humanities courses as part of their core curriculum, but what is frequently lacking is a humanities focus that is specific to healthcare disciplines.
Purpose: The sciences and humanities are embedded in nursing education and professional practice. Nursing is often described as being at the intersection of the art and science to provide holistic care. A mindful approach to the arts and humanities incorporates a health-focused humanities curriculum. Health Humanities is a rapidly evolving field of study that provides a collaborative approach to understanding our complex social world and the meaning of health, illness, and disease. Health Humanities has also been considered essential for its capacity to develop and teach empathy and instill compassion while developing skills, behaviors, and attitudes necessary for health professions students to become clinically and critically reflective practitioners.
Approach: The literature was reviewed and synthesized to understand best practices for incorporating Health Humanities into the undergraduate health professions curricula. The results of this review of the literature, including the potential benefits of incorporating a health humanities curriculum, potential challenges, and the best practices for doing so will be shared with participants in this session.
Implications: Evidence suggests that a health humanities curriculum provides undergraduate health professions students with learning experiences that integrate and support professional attributes, including compassion, empathy, and advocacy, that position graduates to address population concerns in healthcare delivery. Such curricula have been shown to foster caring, patient-centered care and feature learning experiences aimed at helping students better understand and critically reflect upon their experiences, resulting in more self-aware, compassionate practitioners. Enlightening practitioners and educators on the need to rejuvenate undergraduate nursing and healthcare education and providing the tools to do so will support their facilitating this change and embracing the importance of empathy and compassion for themselves and others.
Audience take away notes:
- The participant will identify positive aspects and possible challenges for imbedding health humanities into a nursing/health professions curriculum.
- The participant will identify the best practices to design and foster the implementation of a Health Humanities curriculum.
- The participant will gain a deeper understanding of the importance and implications of a Health Humanities curriculum to inform a collaborative approach to healthcare professional education, expanding knowledge of program content, and student experiences.
