Humanities education in 1980s

“Eighties education in the humanities was not, however, a major intellectual complement in training in scientific medicine. It was promoted primarily as an addendum in ‘values clarification’ and ‘attitude shaping.’ The contrast with Robinson’s project was striking. Humanities education in the ‘personhood’ of patients was presented largely as an afterthought to education about the human biological organism, whereas Robinson’s central aim had been to help students understand patients psychobiologically as ‘total individuals’ so that they could incorporate social and psychological information in proper medical management” (T. Brown III, 153).