Available via license: CC BY-NC 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
Discussion on Integrating Medical Humanities
Education into Medical Anatomy Teaching
Li Ma
Basic Medical College
Shaanxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Xianyang city, China 712046
Abstract—With the change of medical mode l from
"biome dicine" to "bio-psycho-social medicine", medical
education is required to adapt to this change , strengthen
humanistic education and cultivate "doctor sincere" talents.
Base d on the analysis of the current situation of humanistic
education in medical colleges and universities, this paper holds
that inte grating humanistic education into professional teaching
is an important way to cultivate students' humanistic quality.
Human anatomy is the key to medical courses. Integrating
humanistic education into teaching will play a guiding role in
students' career. Combining with teaching practice , this paper
explores how to integrate humanis tic education into the teaching
of human anatomy to achieve the goal of humanistic and moral
emotional education from "human's common feelings" to
"medical's common fe elings ".
Keywords—Medical anatomy, medical humanities education,
medical ethics
I. INTRODUCTION
The term "humanists" comes from the Latin word
"humanists", which refers to human nature and education, as
well as human spiritual culture [1]. Medical humanities
includes the knowledge of human medical culture, medical law,
medical philosophy and other disciplines. Its core value is to
safeguard the dignity and rights of human life. Traditional
Chinese medicine requires this. Traditional Chinese medicine
requires this. Sun Simiao discussed two questions about
medical ethics in his book "Sincerity of the Great Doctor". The
first one is "excellence", which requires doctors to have
excellent medical skills. He believes that medical ethics is "the
most subtle thing", and that medical practitioners must "have
extensive medical resources and be diligent and tireless". The
second is sincerity, that is, the medical practitioner is required
to have a noble moral cultivation, to "see the distressed, if he
has it," to feel the same heart, vow to "save the suffering of the
spirit", and then to pledge to "practice the suffering of the
spirit." And it is not allowed to "self-proclaimed, chase
reputation", "selling one's own strengths, and passing through
the property." Throughout the generations, Huatuo and Bian
Que, the famous doctors praised for their great popularity, are
not so much related to their superb medical skills as to their
noble medical ethics. With the development of society, modern
medicine has evolved from a "biomedical model" to a "bio-
social-psycho-medical model", which requires medical workers
not only to have superb scientific quality, but also to have
noble humanistic quality[2]. "Doctors need a clear mind and
a compassionate heart," said William Osler, father of modern
clinical medicine. Therefore, as a qualified doctor, we should
not only have erudite professional knowledge, but also have
noble humanistic feelings. Thus, medical humanistic quality
plays an irreplaceable role in the career of doctors. If there is
no proper pilot in the formation of humanistic quality, medical
students may not become expected doctors. Human anatomy,
as the first basic course for medical students, plays a
navigational role in cultivating students' correct humanistic
feelings. Therefore, we will explore how to integrate
humanistic education into the teaching of human anatomy so as
to cultivate professional doctors who have both excellent
majo rs and noble f eelings.
II. CURRENT SITUATION OF MEDICAL HUMANITIES
EDUCATION IN CHINA
Firstly, there are deviations in understanding the cultivation
of humanistic quality. As the main body of training medical
students, medical professional teachers are familiar with and
unfamiliar with humanistic education. Familiarly, political and
ideological education and moral education directly replace
humanistic education. Strangely, as a professional teacher, he
only has medical knowledge, lacks humanistic knowledge and
has a single structure. The teaching of medical professional
knowledge is based on professional knowledge and clinical
application. Humanities education is abandoned by humanities
teachers. However, these teachers lack corresponding medical
professional knowledge and cannot be trained more vividly,
dee ply and pro fessionall y.
Secondly, the progress of science and technology has
promoted the development of medicine, leading to the
corresponding neglect of humanistic literacy and humanistic
care in medical training. At present, there are more and more
patients, more and more complicated causes, more and more
diversified types of diseases, but the contradiction between
doctors and patients is becoming increasingly fierce. Although
all kinds of sophisticated instruments and equipment and new
drugs can’t cure all diseases, doctors rely too much on high
technology in the process of disease diagnosis and treatment,
and even some doctors try to solve non-technical medical
problems with technology. They believe that medical science
and technology can conquer all illnesses and that human organs
can be replaced arbitrarily after being damaged like machine
parts. They regard people as machines, neglect their initiative,
or even the inhumane application of science and technology,
and neglect that the ultimate goal of medicine should be to
3rd International Seminar on Education Innovation and Economic Management (SEIEM 2018)
Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 286
90
prevent diseases and promote health, forming a clinical
diagnosis and treatment mode that relies excessively on high-
tech and laboratory examination results and excessively on
drugs and operations. The excessive application of high
technology leads to the corresponding neglect of humanistic
literacy and humanistic care in medical training, the excessive
emphasis on the study of professional theoretical knowledge
and the training of professional skills, resulting in the decline
of doctor-patient communication ability and weak service
consciousness, which can’t meet the multi-level requirements
of current medical services.
Secondly, the curriculum is unreasonable. Many medical
colleges pay little attention to the practical role of humanistic
education because of the lack of courses in humanistic
education and the poor purpose of humanistic education. They
do not attach importance to the practical role of humanistic
education. They are disjointed from theory and practice, and
their teaching methods and means are single. Due to the weak
strength of medical specialists in some medical colleges, the
humanities education discipline exists in the form of
supplementary courses. Moreover, there is no humanistic
education teaching at all, and medical humanities education is
completely marginalized.
Finally, medical students have a heavy burden of
schoolwork. Medical students mostly study science in senior
high school. As science students, the basic knowledge of
humanities is relatively weak. They do not attach importance to
the study of Humanities and Social Sciences ideologically and
lack correct understanding. After entering medical colleges and
universities, students are only busy learning heavy medical
specialty and related natural science knowledge, and have no
time and energy to choose related courses of humanities
education because of the unique characteristics of medical
specialty such as long education system, strong specialty, lar ge
amount of curriculum knowledge and heavy burden of
schoolwork. Even if elective, most of the students are also in
order to complete academic points.
III. THE NECESSITY OF INTEGRATING MEDICA L
HUMANITIES EDUCATION INTO MEDICAL ANATOMY TEACHING
Medical anatomy is the first medical professional course
that medical students come into contact with. The nouns in this
course almost account for more than one third of medical
science. It is one of the important pillar disciplines of medicine
and the unshakable cornerstone for medical students to study
various disciplines of medicine. Medical anatomy studies t he
morphological structure, location and adjacent relationship of
normal human organs, laying a solid foundation for other
medical courses. Only on the basis of mastering the normal
shape and structure of human body, can we correctly judge
whether the human body is normal or not, correctly understand
the physiological function and pathological changes of human
body, so as to make correct prevention, diagnosis and treatment
of diseases. Medical anatomy teaching is aimed at training
medical students, whose direct service object is human, and the
study of human diseases. Man has both natural and social
attributes, which determines that doctors should not only study
diseases, but also understand patients, study people, understand
effective communication, further understand and understand
society, and truly realize the complex relationship between
disease, man and society. In learning the basic structure,
through linking with clinical practice, students can know that
the basic knowledge can be used to judge whether the position
of some organs is normal, whether the shape and size have
changed, whether the texture has hardened or softened. They
can even distinguish some symptoms from where the fracture
is, and can distinguish whether the swelling of some parts is
caused by fracture or dislocation, etc. to avoid excessive
dependence on high-tech and laboratory results, excessive
dependence on drugs and surgery clinical diagnosis and
treatment model. Through systematic anatomical study,
students can understand that doctors can only prescribe
chemical drugs or surgery is not comprehensive, but also learn
to prescribe health guidance. Health prescriptions should
include health behaviors such as reasonable diet, proper
exercise, psychological adjustment, smoking cessation and
alcohol restriction, and adequate sleep. The ancients said "cure
before disease", and the latest research shows that if risk factors
can be intervened early, about 80% of heart disease, stroke,
type II diabetes mellitus and 40% of tumors can be prevented.
Healthy lifestyle can reduce 70% of premature deaths, while
pure medical technology can only reduce 10% of premature
deaths. Through the study of anatomy, students can put forward
specific exercises and precautions for sports. For the
discomfort of muscles and joints, they can analyze and make
corresponding functional exercises, so as to truly achieve
"prevention first, prevention and treatment combined", and
avoid the occurrence and development of some chronic
diseases. Only in this way can the students know that it is the
doctor's duty to cure the disease and save the people. A really
good doctor should have excellent medical technology,
profound knowledge and profound humanistic accomplishment.
Therefore, it is necessary to integrate humanistic quality
educ ation into me dical anatomy.
IV. CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW TEACHING MODEL
A. Change the Concept of Understanding
In medical humanities education, the key is to constantly
improve the overall humanistic quality of medical students and
medical workers and to change their concepts and
understandings. [3] As a medical educator, we should fully
understand that medicine is the unity of scientific spirit and
humanistic spirit. To change our understanding, we must first
transcend our role as a professional teacher, transform oneself
into an educator, to look at humanistic education from the
standpoint of "education" rather than "specialty", change the
concept of attaching importance only to science and neglecting
humanities, recognize the importance of humanistic educatio n,
increase the improvement of one's own humanistic
accomplishment, establish the concept of "being reasonable,
taking moral education as the first", adhere to the principle of
"both professional and spiritual adults", and build a unified
educ ation mode l of knowle dge and practice.
Science, technology and humanities, both of which
permeate and integrate with each other, and medical talents
with both ability and morality, must possess both scientific
spirit and humanistic care spirit. But without proper pilotage, it
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 286
91
may not have the desired effect. Only by improving teachers'
humanistic accomplishment can they be able to guide students
to establish kindness, cultivate students' emotional
communication ability, cultivate students' cautious and
independent spirit in the process of imparting knowledge, and
cultivate doctors with both virtue and ability.
B. Change the Way of Teaching
Teaching is an organic combination of teaching and
learning. Traditional teaching methods tend to teach. Teachers
speak in class with great grace. Students remember passively,
and swim passively with teachers in the ocean of knowledge.
From experience, under the traditional teacher-centered
teaching mode, students have no subjective initiative in the
classroom, and humanities education can’t naturally integrate
into the teaching, so the reform of teaching mode is the general
trend. Teachers should first realize that professional courses
contain abundant humanistic connotations. They should realize
that professional courses should be regarded as the main
channel of Ideological and political education, and should be
guided by conscious thoughts instead of being forced to instill
rigidly. Secondly, we should pay attention to cultivating our
own humanistic accomplishment and integrate ideological and
political education into all teaching activities and bit by bit
teacher-student interaction. Finally, due to the lack of
humanistic quality in textbooks, teachers can add philosophy,
art and other relate d content to the teaching co urseware.
For anatomy with a large number of nouns piled up, simple
morphological structure and fixed location, we use PBL, CBL,
heuristic, discussion and other teaching methods, student-
centered, so that students can use multimedia, PPT, network
and other means to put forward problems and solve problems
on medical records. In the process of solving problems,
teachers guide students to discuss relevant humanistic qualities.
For example, inappropriate nursing for patients in muscle
group can easily lead to joint deformity. In order to elucidate
the causes of deformity, teachers should guide students to grasp
the rules of muscle distribution and make students aware of the
harm that medical accidents may cause to patients. In learning
orthopaedics, teachers should let students understand that
children's bones are easily deformed, the elderly are prone to
fracture, bedsores are prone to occur when they can't move in
bed, so that students can understand that while improving their
own literacy, they should also care about the health of patients.
Only by "immediately rushing patients and suffering from
painful patients" can students communicate with patients with
zero gaps, gain the trust of patients, reduce the contradiction
between doctors and patients, and improve the relationship
between do cto rs and pati ents.
C. Integrate Humanities Education into the Experimental
Class
In traditional experimental classes, there are photographers,
frighteners, people who are afraid of being dirty and tired, and
people who are afraid of being timid and frightened. There are
many kinds of experiments, and some students even read in the
classroom with anatomy textbooks. In view of this
phenomenon, we set out to let students participate as the main
body of the experimental course, which is conducive to
internalize the theoretical medical humanities knowledge into
students' stable quality and conscious behavior, and is an
important channel of medical humanities education [4]. Before
the experiment class, students carry and clean up the general
teachers, and collectively mourn to the general teachers, so as
to gradually overcome the fear of the general teachers. Just
after class, students are required to dress neatly and sanitarily,
with a solemn look. In turn, they pay tribute to the general
teachers to fold a thousand paper cranes or chrysanthemums.
Then they observe a collective silence for 3 minutes to
cultivate the students' character of loving life, respecting life
and being grateful. After participating in the class, the students
left moving words like "speechless teacher donate themselves
for the academics, and they are the model of the people;
education for all beings, for the teacher to breed peaches and
plums, my generation and friend" and "once dedicated to life
without regret, their dedication will live in all directions". And
in the follow-up course, the students, with a heart of admiration
and gratitude, strive to learn every form structure, think about
the purpose of each structure, understand why the structure
forms such a form in the part and try to be aware of it and
know why. Through these activities, students will be able to
understand their own gratitude and clarify their responsibilities.
In the process of learning, teachers should pay attention to the
combination of philosophical views, such as the "shape and
function fit" point of view. By observing the morphological
features of the articular surface, the student analyzes the form
of motion that the joint can do and know that for the upper and
lower limbs of the human body, the function requires flexible
upper limbs and stable lower limb weight bearing. Therefore,
the shape adapts to the function, and the joint surface of the
upper and lower limbs also changes accordingly. In addition,
there are other philosophical viewpoints such as "unification of
local and overall" and "co mbination of theo ry and practic e".
D. Promote Humanistic Quality in the Interaction of
Extracurricular Teaching
Schools can organize students to enter hospitals, through
excellent doctors to explain students' time, career, hospital, so
that students can understand the doctor's profession, familiar
with the hospital. By inquiring patients, students can
understand the influence of medical workers' attitude on
patients, the importance of hospice care and the significance of
humanistic care. Students enter hospitals to improve students'
understanding of cultural values, cultivate students' sense of
moral responsibility, enhance students' psychological quality,
strengthen interpersonal communication skills, and cultivate
humanistic care spirit. By organizing academic lectures and
expert seminars, we can cultivate students' ability to integrate
humanistic education with scientific education. Students can
appreciate the style of famous experts, stimulate interest and
impr ove their moral accomplishment [5 -6].
V. CONCLUSIONS
Through medical humanistic quality education, medical
students not only have solid basic medical knowledge, but also
have good psychological quality, moral responsibility and
humanistic quality. Integrating humanistic medical education
into human anatomy can stimulate medical students' interest in
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 286
92
learning, improve their thinking, will and professional ethics,
and realize the simultaneous and balanced development of
medical students' humanistic quality and anatomical knowledge.
REFEREN CES
[1] Du Hong. Medical Humanities Education is the Foundation of Medical
Education [J]. Journal of Medical Postgraduate, 2013, 26 (06): 561-563.
[2] Huang Yuqi. Humanistic thinking in clinical laboratory diagnosis and
diagnosis [J]. Journal of Medical Pos tgraduate, 2006 (03): 193-194.
[3] He Jian'e. The Misunderstanding of Medical Humanities Education in
China and Its Correction[J].Pharmaceutical Education,2014,30(05):6-9.
[4] Chen Jinlong, Lu Gang, Song Wei, et al. Discussion on Strengthening
Medical Humanities Education in Medical Microbiology
Teaching[J].Chinese Contemporary Medicine, 2015,22(04):169-171.
[5] Xu Zhiben, Xu Wenfang, Liu Yong et al. Discussion on the Integration
of Humanities Quality Education into Medical Microbiology
Teaching[J]. Basic Medical Education, 2011, 13(11): 961-963.
[6] Zhu Lijun, Zhang Xiaodong. Strengthen Medical Humanities Education
to Build a Harmonious Relationship between Doctors and Patients[J].
Chines e Journ al of Drugs and Clinics , 2013, 13(09): 1237-1238.
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 286
93