When healthcare AI meets the medical humanities

The field of medical humanities can help “tame” advanced technologies so that healthcare workers can tap emerging innovations without sacrificing the heart of the clinician-patient relationship.

Researchers break down the how’s and why’s in a paper published June 24 in Australia-based Monash Bioethics Review. 

The capacity of the medical humanities to “analyze ethical dilemmas, promote empathy and enhance patient narratives provides an essential counterbalance to the dehumanizing tendencies that may accompany the critical adoption of technologies,” explain Marco Paglialonga, RN, PhD, and Cristiana Simonetti, PhD, of the University of Foggia in Italy. 

Stated another way, one of the primary aims of medical humanities as a field today is to harmonize technological innovations with care models that appreciate patients as, in the words of the authors, “whole persons” who have not just bodies but also minds and relationships.

Here’s more from the paper. 

1. Collaboration between healthcare technology and the medical humanities is not only desirable but essential. 

AI can be developed in a way that respects cultural diversity, eliminates algorithmic bias and enhances understanding of human experiences, the authors point out. Meanwhile the medical humanities “can provide a critical context to guide such developments.” More: 

‘Examples such as the integration of narrative medicine with AI tools demonstrate the potential of this synergy, paving the way for new modalities of empathic and personalized care.’

2. The effective integration of AI requires ongoing efforts to balance efficiency and humanity. 

“This includes training health professionals from an interdisciplinary perspective, developing strict ethical regulations and adopting a participatory approach involving patients, physicians, computer scientists and humanists,” Paglialonga and Simonetti write. 

‘Only through this holistic view will it be possible to realize the full potential of AI, making it an ally of medicine without sacrificing humanity in care.’

3. Imagining a future in which the medical humanities ‘complete’ healthcare technology is not just a theoretical exercise but a practical and moral necessity. 

The medical humanities—which are closely related to storytelling in ethics and empathy—can connect technology and human care. 

‘In this scenario, AI is no longer just a technical tool: It becomes fundamental in expanding the capacity for care.’

4. In the future, AI will support physicians not only in identifying medical abnormalities but also in recognizing the life histories that define patients as unique individuals.

Picture med-school settings in which AI-based simulations enrich student-teacher interactions, training generations of physicians how to navigate technological complexities and moral dilemmas. 

‘And anticipate a world in which medicine never loses sight of its fundamental purpose: to serve humanity.’

Read it all.

————————————

• In other research news: 
   
  • Weill Cornell: Using data and AI to create better healthcare systems  
     
  • University of Missouri: AI model renders low-res MRI scans as high quality images, cuts imaging time by 90% 
     
  • University of Arizona: How AI and wearables are reimagining preventive health care
     
• Funding: 
   
  • Swedish investor Norrsken earmarks $348M for ‘AI for good’
     
  • Healthcare startup Abridge tops $5B valuation in $300M financing round 
     
  • Mandolin raises $40M to improve access to life-saving therapies for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s using AI agents
     
  • SuperDial raises $15M to automate healthcare’s endless admin phone calls