SPECIAL ARTICLE  NEW INSIGHTS INTO MATERNITY CARE DESIGN AND DELIVERY 

Minerva Ginecologica 2018 December;70(6):700-9

DOI: 10.23736/S0026-4784.18.04297-1

Copyright © 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

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

Sandra MORANO ¹ ✉, Antonella LOTTI ², Matilde M. CANEPA ¹, Giulia STERRANTINO ¹, Diliana BELEVA ¹, Laura IANNUZZI ³, Soo DOWNE ⁴

¹ Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics and Maternal-Infant Sciences (DINOGMI), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy; ² Department of Educational Sciences (DISFOR), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy; ³ Department of Health Care Professions, Careggi University Hospital, University of Florence, Florence, Italy; ⁴ Research in Childbirth and Health Unit (ReaCH), School of Community Health and Midwifery, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

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. 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. 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. 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.

KEY WORDS: Humanities - Education, premedical - Curriculum - Midwifery