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Stem cell research, if successful, could provide a means of replacing damaged tissue in patients with diabetes. Controversially, the best stem cells for research and possible therapies seem to be those harvested from embryos, cloned or otherwise. As a result the morality of undertaking such research is hotly contested with vocal champions both for and against this work. To help clinicians and scientists reach their own conclusions about whether stem cell research using human embryos should be sanctioned or not, an impartial overview of the moral arguments offered by both sides is provided.

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.

One of the hotly debated questions, at the journal's recent editorial board meeting, was how to communicate, to our readers, the clinical relevance of the papers we publish. It is an interesting question, and one moreover that begs several others, not least amongst them being whether it is appropriate to expect a medical humanities scholarship to be directly, or indirectly relevant to patient care and clinical practice. Laying that old bugbear to one side, I would like to argue that one of the strengths of medical humanities is its ability to shine a light into some of the darker, and more neglected corners of medicine and social care, and thereby revealing what can be uncomfortable truths. Take, for example, the cover image for this issue, featuring Homeless 1 , by medical student Rory Hutchinson, one of the winners of the inaugural MDU Mark Brennan Prize (Visual Arts category). Rory's work was ‘inspired by the treatment of homeless patients within the medical system’, and aims to ‘raise awareness …

Objective To investigate whether the observational skills of doctors and nurses can be improved by arts-based observational skills training. Methods We carried out a cluster design, controlled trial involving 42 general practitioners and 26 primary care nurses in 12 primary care practices in London. Six practices were allocated to the intervention arm and 6 to the control arm. The intervention group received 90 minutes of arts-based observational skills training. The control group received practical training in the management of psoriasis. Before and after this, control and intervention participants were asked to describe 3 dermatological photographs. Descriptions were scored blindly against a predetermined marking key. Participants completed a questionnaire about the intervention, and about their own confidence in diagnosing and referring suspicious pigmented skin lesions. Results Post-intervention scores were significantly higher in the intervention group compared with the control group (P

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 …