April 12, 2021

Harness the power of the humanities to counteract burnout

"Humanities can be seen as part of the fabric, society, and culture of human experience. In many ways, they might be seen as the disciplines that make us human and make life meaningful. They broadly encompass ancient and modern languages, literature,...

"Humanities can be seen as part of the fabric, society, and culture of human experience. In many ways, they might be seen as the disciplines that make us human and make life meaningful. They broadly encompass ancient and modern languages, literature, philosophy, religion, visual and performing arts, such as music and theater. Even more expansively, they may also include, amongst others, history, archaeology, anthropology, law, and linguistics. These diverse fields explore and foster empathy, compassion, beauty, joy, awe, love, reasoning, tolerance, curiosity, possibility, community. Are we richer as human beings or physicians without this education, or are we abandoning ourselves to the loneliness, sadness, and despair of a more sterile, rigid, negative, and dysfunctional way of thinking?"

Jacqueline Huntly is a family physician and physician coach.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "Medicine for the soul: Harness the power of the humanities to counteract burnout." (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/11/medicine-for-the-soul-harness-the-power-of-the-humanities-to-counteract-burnout.html)