A blog of the Emory University Center for Ethics and the Healthcare Ethics Consortium

Although Hippocrates famously proclaimed “wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is a love of humanity,” the rationale for incorporating the humanities has always been contested in medicine (Nazario 2009). Many view medical humanities as a “soft” science, or irrelevant to the dominant “genes and molecules” approach to medicine (Belinda 2015). Understanding the study or usage of the medical humanities may be perceived as an elusive concept lacking an educational or clini

Technology is a paradoxical thing. Human beings are tool-making animals, and have always looked to their abilities to craft things from the natural world to solve problems of living. Most of our knowledge of our early ancestors are reflected in the tools and technologies they have left behind. We use technologies to solve the problems of living, and so the things we create -arrowheads, cooking utensils, bone flutes, jewelry – can teach us about a culture’s priorities, needs,