What is medical humanities?

Medical humanities has become a key term to describe collaboration in education and research between the humanities, social sciences, medicine/health and pharmacy. Internationally, especially in the USA and Great Britain, the field is well established and in recent years research groups, environments and networks with a focus on medical humanities have been initiated at several major universities in Sweden. Originally, the focus was on integrating humanities and social science perspectives in professional medical education, but medical humanities has subsequently been expanded to also include a pronounced research perspective where questions related to medicine, disease and health are placed in a historical, cultural and social context. The multidisciplinary approach means that medical humanities is a broad field and includes studies that range from the individual's experiences of illness and health to the development of medical practices and societal perspectives on health care.