Creating Canada’s first chair in health humanities
Story by Deanna Cheng
Allan Peterkin has been working to integrate the arts and humanities into medical education for more than a decade — but his efforts today feel especially timely.
“After more than two years of pandemic life, physicians everywhere are exhausted and burned out,” says Peterkin, head of the Health, Arts and Humanities (HAH) Theme. “What the health profession needs now is reflection and renewal. The arts and humanities can help learners and practitioners find their passion and purpose again.”
In 2009, Peterkin launched the HAH Theme as an informal initiative at Mount Sinai Hospital. Health Humanities exposes learners and faculty to arts-based learning and the humanities to improve critical thinking skills to enhance sensitivity and compassion in patient interactions and to develop better self-care, career satisfaction and community building.
Participants explore a range of creative disciplines including the visual arts, creative writing, theatre, film and music, as well as humanities subjects such as history, philosophy and literary studies.
The program also provides practising clinicians with opportunities to engage in dialogue with humanities scholars — shaping discourse around person-centred care, social justice, health advocacy and accountability.
“Ultimately,” says Peterkin, “the goal is to use the arts to remind health care providers of their humanity — as well as that of the patients and communities they serve.
“Medicine can be about patterns and predictability, but emphasizing narrative and storytelling leads us back to the unique subjective experience of each person. Arts-based learning allows us to take the perspective of others, challenge our assumptions and recognize humanity in all its diversity and difference.
“If you’re checking in with yourself and what you’re thinking and feeling, you’re mindful and present with your patient — and can deliver better care.”
The University of Toronto has rapidly become a leader in the emerging field of health humanities. Peterkin and his team have worked to share their experience with peers across Canada by hosting the country’s first annual conference on health humanities in medical education.
The program has also benefited from the increasing awareness of its value. In 2020, the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) recommended the widespread integration of arts and humanities in North American physician education.
Second-year medical students Matthew Cho, Samuel Maclennan and Yina Shan, know how medical education and the humanities can work together. They co-lead the student club ArtBeat, which weaves the humanities into medical curricula through groups focused on health history, medical ethics and narrative-based medicine, as well as book clubs, improv troupes and art clubs.
“ArtBeat helped me find a community of like-minded individuals,” says Cho. “The medical humanities gave me the tools to see the structural issues and systemic barriers that affect patients, their stories and the care we provide. It has become an essential part of my medical education.
“As health care becomes more complex and as new technologies emerge, the human element of health care is something that can’t be replicated,” says Maclennan. “The medical humanities are a critical component of a physician’s training, especially for the rapidly changing landscape that we will be practising in.”
Upper-year medical students Lunan Zhao and Neha Malhotra have first-hand knowledge of the importance of the medical humanities.
“As learners we see that the biomedical approach of treating diseases has limits in supporting the well-being of patients,” says Zhao. “An interdisciplinary lens drawing on critical theory from the humanities enables us, as clinical learners, to better appreciate the social determinants of health.”
Based on their proven track record and impact, Peterkin and his colleagues are taking an ambitious next step in the evolution of health humanities teaching and learning — seeking philanthropic support to establish Canada’s first endowed Chair in Health Humanities.
The chair’s mandate will focus on enhancing existing arts and humanities programming while developing new initiatives focused on clinical learners at every level and from all departments and divisions. As an endowed position, the chair will be maintained in perpetuity, securing the arts and humanities’ continuity and longevity in Temerty Medicine’s clinical educational offerings.
“The field is mature enough in Canada now for us to do this,” says Peterkin. “The standards of medical education have changed, and it is our obligation to create a healthier, more well-rounded experience for our trainees through the arts and humanities.”
To find out more about the Chair in Health Humanities and how you can support it, please contact Michelle Fong, Associate Director, Development in Temerty Medicine’s Office of Advancement at michelley.fong@utoronto.ca or by telephone at 416-529-8500.