Philosophy in Medical Education

In recent years, philosophy of science has increasingly engaged with scientific practice and with the distinctive features of various specific scientific disciplines. Simultaneously, a significant debate has been growing on teaching philosophy to scientists: reflections have been fostered on the role that some competence in philosophy can play for non-philosophers as well. Within this broader context, this contribution focuses on the reasons why the philosophy of medicine should be incorporated in the training of medical researchers, physicians, and healthcare workers, on how it should be included, and on the potential consequences it might yield. A plea for introducing philosophy into medical curricula has been advocated both from within philosophy itself – particularly from the realm of the philosophy of medicine – and from within the medical sciences. This chapter highlights the most pressing and theoretically challenging medical issues calling for philosophical reflections, and presents cases in which philosophy needs to be integrated into medical programs both for research and clinical purposes. Discussing the merits of a philosophical education for students and scholars in medical fields involves also some careful investigation on medical syllabi and their constraints, teaching contents, and methodologies. Considerations on philosophy in medical education cannot, hence, but intertwine reflections on didactics and teaching strategies. The contribution ends by underlining that evaluating the positive role philosophy can have in medical education might effectively go hand in hand with some rethinking of education in philosophy too, and of the potential benefits that imparting knowledge on biomedical topics could reciprocally have on philosophical education.