Humanities in the undergraduate medical and midwifery curriculum:a descriptive Italian comparative study

Abstract

BACKGROUNDː There is an increasing emphasis on humanized care in obstetric and midwifery practice. The goal of
this paper is to investigate if and how medical humanities content was present in the undergraduate medical syllabus and
how similar or different this is from the undergraduate midwifery program in Italy.
METHODSː A review of the 2017-18 curriculum for Italian Schools of Medicine and of Midwifery was carried out
through institutional websites or mailing requests. The following details were collected for each program: the type of
humanities content; the academic credits allocated, whether it was taught as a stand-alone (independent) topic or not, and
the year(s) of the program when it was provided.
RESULTSː Programs were included for 39 Schools of Medicine and 36 Schools of Midwifery. All midwifery schools
included at least one subject with humanities content. Five medical schools (12.9) did not appear to have any subjects
in this area. Psychology and ethics/bioethics were the most frequently found topics in both disciplines, but, apart from
history of medicine, midwifery was much more likely than medicine to include other humanities topics, and especially
pedagogy, anthropology, sociology and communication studies, philosophy and cross-cultural studies were rarely or
never included in either discipline.
CONCLUSIONSː A greater breadth of humanities studies was included in midwifery schools. However, their relative
importance appears to be low, given the low level of academic credits and lack of presence as independent subjects.
(Cite this article as: Morano S, Lotti A, Canepa MM, Sterrantino G, Beleva D, Iannuzzi L, et al. Humanities in the undergraduate medical and midwifery curriculum:a descriptive Italian comparative study. Minerva Ginecol 2018;70:000-000. DOI:
10.23736/S0026-4784.18.04297-1)