Description: Medical Humanities comprises disciplines as diverse as literature, the visual and performing arts, the history of medicine, and bioethics. Josie Billington examines the value that literature adds to medical education in health training and practice, and defends the power of the arts as a remedial force.
Review Quotes: "a clear-eyed account of the use of literature and reading groups in therapeutic and clinical settings...Yet her book stands out because it resists the funding-friendly notion that literature can be "prescribed" to make people feel better - that it is just "cheerily uplifting". Instead, she argues that the "good moments" brought about by reading occur because there are no "set aims and outcomes." --Times Literary Supplement
"The medical humanities have become more complex and more theoretically savvy over the years. But we desperately need more books like Billington's that address us quietly and clearly, about something very basic. Literature and the literary have lost their cachet in our field. If you want to know why it should be restored, read this book. The case could not be better made." --Dr. Neil Vickers, Medical Humanities Blog