Medicina, Cine y Literatura: una experiencia docente en la Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona

Abstract

[ES] Es una percepción común que los estudiantes de medicina pasan los seis años de licenciatura obsesionados con el examen MIR y, una vez superado, el sistema sanitario y la excesiva actividad asistencial fomenta la hiperespecialización, lo que en muchas ocasiones es en detrimento de aprender a leer al enfermo como un todo. El ejercicio de la profesión debería entender al paciente en su globalidad, ya que la medicina entendida como un humanismo ético, fracasa si se especializa al paciente. En la Unidad Docente del Hospital UniversitariGermans Trias i Pujol de la Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona nos planteamos incorporar una asignatura que permitiera a los alumnos leer y ver la medicina mucho más allá del diagnóstico, que les posibilitara una visión más amplia de la enfermedad y que se convirtiera en el complemento emocional de su licenciatura (y, en consecuencia directa, de una profesión) excesivamente biologista. ¿Qué mejor que la literatura y el cine para enseñar a los alumnos a leer y ver la medicina ? Por el conocimiento que tenemos de otros programas universitarios se trata no sólo de una asignatura novedosa, sino de un modelo de aprendizaje absolutamente diferente a los habituales en esta licenciatura, no así en otros estudios, como los de gestión empresarial, donde sí suele trabajarse con asignaturas y modelos similares.

[EN] In Spain, it is commonly held that medical students spend the entire time of their degree courses obsessed with the MIR (Post-graduate Medical Training/ Medical Residency) exam and, when they have sat and passed this, the health system itself together with excessive professional activity foster what is tantamount to a hyperspecialisation , in many cases in detriment to learning to read the patient as a complete entity. Upon exercising their profession, physicians should understand patients in their entirety since medicine when considered as ethical humanism- fails if the patient is merely slotted into the specialist pigeon-hole. At the Teaching Unit of the Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol of the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona we were prompted to incorporate a subject in the syllabus that would allow students to both read and see medicine to an extent far beyond the diagnostic level, that would provide them with a broader view of diseases, and one that that would become an emotional complement to the material studied in their degree course (and as a direct consequence, to their future profession), which tends to be excessively biologistic . What, then, could be better than literature and the cinema to teach studentsto read and see medicine ? From previous knowledge that we had culled from other university programs, this would not only be a novel subject per se but should also offer a completely different learning model from traditional teaching contents in the field. This would thus approach the situation in other degree courses, such as in business studies, where similar subjects and models are used.