Pulse: A Message from Dean Edward C. Halperin

The modern American university is a confluence of two themes in higher education. The first was articulated in multiple state constitutions after the American Revolution wherein these documents set forth, as a responsibility of state government, the creation of state universities.

It was codified during the Lincoln administration by the Morill Act, which created land-grant universities to provide democratization, access and economic progress to the citizens. This view defined the university as an organization dedicated to public service.

An alternative point of view was articulated by the greatest modern-era education writer in the English language: John Cardinal Newman.

Writing in Ireland, in the 1860s, he described the university as a citadel aimed at "raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principals to popular aspirations, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political powers, and refining the intercourse of private life."

The University of Louisville attempts to serve both of these missions: service to the public as well as cultivating the public mind. These two missions converge as we address a current acute need in medical education.

Polls demonstrate that the American public is deeply distressed by the quality of their medical care. A recent national poll found that two of the three most frequent criticisms of doctors are "not getting to know me" or "not spending enough time with me." (The third is a concern about the non-insured.)

What happened to the ability of doctors to just talk to patients? What happened to humane qualities in medicine? What has happened to medical humanism?

The University of Louisville intends to tackle this problem in a direct way using a proven technique: the teaching of the liberal arts. To live life is to be a liberal artist. We must decide whether doctors shall be good ones or bad ones. We intend to train good ones.

By teaching our young physicians the history of medicine, the medical narrative in English literature, bioethics, medicine and art, and spirituality in medicine, we intend to elevate the level of discourse regarding humanism in medicine and train a cadre of physicians who appreciate the importance of the humanistic touch in a world of highly technological medicine. We will engage in the ancient debate as framed for us by Aristotle: the intersection of faith and reason.

We will create a Doctor of Medicine/Master of Arts Program in Medical Humanities.

This five- to six-year program will develop a cadre of physicians trained in the humanistic disciplines. For those medical students who choose not to pursue the master's degree, the courses spun off by this program will be of inestimable benefit.

An added benefit of this program is that it is, by its nature, interdisciplinary. It will merge strengths of the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

I also intend to reach out to Louisville theological seminaries of the Presbyterian and Baptist movements and to the Roman Catholic Church to help create courses in medicine and spirituality. We all understand that patients often make decisions about crucial health-care issues by invoking their faith traditions.

Academic health centers like to say they are a three-legged stool providing clinical care, research and education.

But clinical care is also provided by community hospitals, and research is performed by pharmaceutical companies and research institutes. Education, of our three missions, is the only sole responsibility of schools of medicine. It is, therefore, not only one of our responsibilities but our most important responsibility.

To create a program in medical humanities will require people, space, library resources and money. Since, however, such a program will, as Cardinal Newman said 140 years ago, raise the intellectual tone of society and cultivate the public mind, it is a worthy goal for your University of Louisville.

Edward C. Halperin, M.D., M.A.
Dean, School of Medicine