Developments in medical humanities in Sri Lanka: A call for regional and global action

Abstract

Introduction: Medical Humanities is the interface of health sciences and humanities and an emerging field of interest. Several papers have outlined the status of this field in the Asian region where a diversity of teaching and learning approaches have been used. We share developments initiated in a Sri Lankan medical school and discuss its relevance to the southern Asian region, especially in using arts in medical humanities. Methods: Historical records, narratives, grey literature, and published resources were collated to describe the initiative in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. The data was collected, synthesized and described especially in the context of the region. Results: We observe a structured development of medical humanities in the curriculum. The novelty of the curriculum is that it evolving to include wider experiences from the visual and performance arts, in order to achieve the goal of promoting humaneness. The contents were locally developed, based on needs with an indigenous cultural bias giving rise to a unique southern Asian perspective of medical humanities. Conclusion: There are diverse experiences and initiatives in medical humanities in Asian, and some are not captured in published literature. It is challenging to follow these diverse trends in different locations, share experiences and learn from each other, and place medical humanities in the regional and global maps of health professional education.