Exploring medical humanities from heterogeneous focus groups: A thematic analysis

ABSTRACT Medical humanities has evolved to encompass a multidisciplinary approach, integrating humanities, social sciences, and arts into medical education and practice. Despite its flourishing development, the definition of medical humanities still requires refinement to be inclusive of various cultures and regions. This study aimed to explore perceptions among students, physicians, and nurses, with a focus on the definition, learning, and implementation of medical humanities. We conducted four heterogeneous focus groups, comprising 4th-year and 6th-year medical students, physicians (including three medical humanities educators), and nurses. Data collection utilized semi-structured guiding questions, followed by thematic analysis. The transcripts were manually analyzed in their original Mandarin, and participant names were anonymized to ensure that the authors remained unaware of the participants’ identities throughout the study. The analysis identified three themes and 16 subthemes. Theme 1, “Medical Humanities Properties,” included four subthemes: variety, evolvement, clinical relevancy, and the value of humaneness. Theme 2, “Medical Humanities Contents,” comprised seven subthemes: self-cultivation, communication, empathy, cultural competence, medical ethics and law, embodiment, and one subtheme open for interpretation in varying circumstances. Theme 3, “Medical Humanities Cultivation,” included five subthemes: personal growth, curriculum, multimedia, clinical experience, and metacognition. Our study introduces a three-layered framework of medical humanities, emphasizing the field’s dynamic nature and the critical role of experiential learning in developing key competencies such as empathy, awareness, and communication. This framework incorporates the concept of “self-cultivation” from Eastern philosophy, accentuating the significance of well-being for health-care professionals. The research not only enriches medical humanities education and practice by incorporating Eastern perspectives but also deepens the overall understanding of humanity in health care.