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Ted Shotter's founding of the London Medical Group (LMG) 50 years ago in 1963 had several far reaching implications for medical ethics, as other papers in this issue indicate. Most significant for the joint authors of this short paper was his founding of the quarterly Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) in 1975, with Alastair Campbell as its first editor-in-chief. In 1980 Raanan Gillon began his 20-year editorship (after which 5-year appointments extendable for up to 2 further years were instituted!). Gillon was succeeded in 2001 by Julian Savulescu, followed by John Harris and Soren Holm in 2004, with Julian Savulescu starting his second and current term in 2011. In 2000 an additional special edition of the JME, Medical Humanities (MH), was published, under the founding joint editorship of Martyn Evans and David Greaves. In 2003 Jane Macnaughton succeeded David Greaves as joint editor. Deborah Kirklin, under whose auspices MH became an independent journal, took over in 2008, and she was succeeded in 2013 by Sue Eckstein. This short paper offers reminiscences and reflections from the two journals’ various editors. From the start the JME was committed to clearly expressed reasoned discussion of ethical issues arising from or related to medical practice and research. In particular, both Edward Shotter and Alastair Campbell, each a cleric (one Anglican, the other Presbyterian), were at pains to make clear that the JME was not a religious journal and that it had no sort of partisan axe to grind. Campbell's appointment as founding editor was something of a surprise, as the original intention had been to appoint a medical doctor, who (‘up to the elbows in blood’) could be expected to know medical practice from the inside. However, in 1972 Campbell, a Joint Secretary of the Edinburgh Medical Group, had published Moral dilemmas in medicine . …

“‘ . . .before you get spoilt by it all. Before you become a fully qualified doctor, just give me a helping hand as a human being.’ (Kostoglotov: cancer patient)”1 Are human beings irreversibly “spoilt” by medical training or merely disengaged from “normal” human interaction? If what is desired is a doctor who reaches out as a human being to his or her patients then it is important for educators to know why that sometimes fails to happen. Is the end product of medical training (sometimes) incapable of stretching out its hand or instead just disinclined to do so? If the latter, then presumably we should focus our energies on motivating practitioners to reach out by, for example, inspiring empathy. If, however, medical …

“He never entered into relation with the picture as a whole—never faced, so to speak, its physiognomy. He had no sense whatever of a landscape or scene.”1 Medical humanities provides one way to get a sense of the landscape in which individuals and societies experience sickness and health. In this issue's Education and debate section Ruth Richardson, an interdisciplinary historian, uses a highly topical subject to show that an appreciation of medical history can illuminate current thinking in medicine. Her paper is offered, therefore, not simply or even primarily as an historical account but rather as a complementary perspective within the multifaceted approach offered by medical humanities. An education broadened by the humanities is, of course, no guarantee that a better …

We describe a humanities-based, special studies module (SSM) exploring the impact of cancer on the lives of patients, families and professionals. Literature, film, art and drama provide third year medical undergraduates with vicarious experience of all of these perspectives in a format that has proved highly acceptable to students and tutors. The development, delivery, evaluation and evolution of this humanities-based course are described and we highlight some important elements of course organisation that emerged as being integral to its success.

This paper explores how current devel- opments within medical humanities might provide a way to both understand and address the origin of recent events that have left the profession branded as arrogant, out of touch and mis- guided 2 . The arts provide a powerful medium to improve the understanding of the experience of illness. Furthermore the understanding obtained is qualitatively different from that acquired in the traditional doctor- patient encounter. In addition medical humanities can create a space for doctors to reflect on their own practice and experiences. The benefits of using this space are illustrated with four examples of arts-based education deliv- ered to groups of practitioners at different stages in their professional lives.

In this issue’s Editors choice , Aoife Moran, Anne Scott and Philip Darbyshire1 ( see page 70 ) argue that the process of living on haemodialysis, while waiting for a kidney transplant, is one in which time is both killed and wasted. Rather like the lives of the protagonists in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot , the lives of people on dialysis are ones characterised by existential boredom. Moreover, their patience will not always be rewarded, because, as dialysis patients know all too well, many of them will die before they receive a kidney. And yet somehow, in spite of all the physical, emotional, social and economic costs incurred in living these lives of existential boredom and uncertainty, their authors must search, as humans always have, for meaning and purpose within that existence. That search can be lonely and demoralising. It would be less lonely, argue Moran et al , if the healthcare professionals most intimately involved in the care of dialysis patients—nurses—could be helped to remember this. It’s a reminder, a lesson, that everyone whose work takes them into contact with people living with chronic illness would benefit from, and especially, perhaps, those who have been working with patients for a long time. Because, no matter how much any one individual might have understood about human suffering before he or she became a doctor or a nurse or a porter or a radiologist, it doesn’t take long before the conversations they have with patients are liberally spattered with the word “just”: “You just need a blood test/a colonoscopy/an MRI/a small operation”, “It’ll just be a little uncomfortable/a while until you feel better/a small disruption to your normal routine”, “I just need to ask you some questions/examine you/refer you/tell you something”. Except that for the …

Suffering, grief, and marginalisation are just a few of the human experiences closely observed by authors in this issue of Medical Humanities . None of these are easy to endure or to witness, and yet the latter is exactly what these scholars have chosen to do. Using, among others, the prisms of literary studies, social history, and film and television studies, they ponder the role of healthcare practitioners—for good or for bad—in responding to what Barker and Buchanan-Barker term “problems in human living” ( see page 110 ).1 According to Barker and Buchanan-Barker, as a society and as healthcare professionals, we have lost sight of what is required of us in the face of human suffering. When an individual is no longer able to cope psychologically with the challenges life offers, we no longer understand “what exactly are we called to do as people —whether as professionals, friends or fellow travellers”.1 Rather than focusing resources and energy on simply containing or attempting to control those affected in this way, they suggest instead that the primary concern should be to help people to address and live with these problems. This proposed reframing of what is currently known as mental illness echoes the reframing of disability as a social rather than a medical concern, reminding us that “people need to be agents rather than patients ”.1 Caring for people rather than controlling them will, they suggest, take courage—courage that Barker and Buchanan-Barker find sadly missing in their own profession of psychiatric nursing. Instead, they judge it to be intoxicated with the narcissistic allure of academic success and driven by political and economic imperatives. This apparently harsh evaluation has implications far beyond nursing, challenging society as a whole to answer the charge that fear—and not a desire to care—dominates the provision …

“ … the sensitivity of the artist may equal the knowledge of the scientist. Both have the same object, nature, and perhaps in time it will be possible for them to link together in a great and marvellous force which is at present hard to imagine.”1 These are exciting times for medical humanities in the UK, with artists and scientists working hand in hand to help deliver a more humanistic approach to health care.2 The existence of this journal and the wealth of innovative work it reports in this issue bear testimony to the enthusiasm and creativity of those active in the field. Throughout the country educators are taking up the challenge contained in the General Medical Council's (GMC) Tomorrow's Doctors 3 and are developing and delivering humanities special study modules (SSMs) to complement the core medical …

In the first issue of this journal, Education and Debate asked whether medical humanities would help make better doctors or just happier ones.1 That question begs a number of others, among them: what is a good doctor, what attributes might such a doctor possess, and are there different kinds of good doctors that medical educators should be helping to graduate? Appropriately, the focus of much of the published data on arts and humanities based medical education is on equipping doctors with the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary for clinical practice. The emphasis, either explicitly or implicitly, is on the doctor/patient interaction, and on the role of medical humanities in enhancing the quality of that interaction. The ability to appreciate the perspective of all those affected by illness, to reflect on one’s own practice, and to contextualise the lived experience of illness, socially, culturally, and historically are among the objectives ascribed to medical humanities teaching. By contrast, the Education and Debate paper in this issue describes a medical humanities …