Implementing Medical Humanities in Italy: progress of a research p

Abstract

The current Italian health-care context is characterized by diagnostic and therapeutic practices associated with different attitudes of care. The educational practices related to the current of thought of the Medical Humanities allows to combine those different approaches, starting from the vocational training of
the healthcare professionals, through specific hermeneutic and interpretative processes. This research aims to study the process of implementation of the MH practices in Italy. Within a sequential multi-method design it is possible to identify – through a grounded theory research – an empirical theory of the MH in Italy, which is then compared, through a cross-national study, with the meaningful English where MH founded a formal acknowledgement and different forms of development. The expected findings are intended to outline the traits for which the MH may be a key element in an healthcare education that draws a pedagogical philosophy alive to the present time, trying to combine personcentered care practices with a regard for the living matter process of resource optimization.