Professional Caring in the Curriculum

Summary

The medical education literature reflects a renewed attention to humanism in the teaching and learning of medicine during the latter part of the 20 ^th century. During this period growing influence of the biopsychosocial model of medicine has led to curricular additions addressing patient physician communication ethics and humanities (Curry & Makoul, 1998). In seeking to address the human dimension of medical practice, many schools have appended courses to the curriculum or added content to existing courses; unfortunately this can contribute to curricular overload and inadvertently imply that such subjects are ancillary (Curry & Makoul, 1998).

The noted educational philosopher Nel Noddings (1992) espouses an ethic of caring from the perspective of moral education, advising that education should be organized around “centers of care” and calling for a better balance betweento caring for ideas and objects (e.g., science and technology) with caring attention for living things (e.g., self, others). A contemporary definition of the compassionate-empathetic physician reflects a desirable balance of science and humanism, and unites these two dimensions through devotion to patient welfare: is one “whose pattern of behavior reflects strong devotion to the this physician welfare of patients on two crucial dimensions of care: the scientific-technical and socio-emotional, or, as it is often put, curing and caring” (Carmel & Glick, 1996, p. 1253).

This chapter will present perspectives on professional and pedagogical caring pertinent to teaching, learning and research, as well as review the research on caring, learning environment and related assessment in the health professions. Also some teaching-learning venues appropriate for the transmission of caring as a core component of moral education in the medical curriculum will be discussed.