Knowing how we know: an epistemological rationale for the medical humanities

An epistemological view of the humanities in medical education offers a significant new way of conceptualising and communicating the potential role of the humanities in medical training. If clinical practice can be characterised as rational but interpretive, partly predictable yet fundamentally uncertain, and logical but also intuitive, it follows that educational training should facilitate such ways of knowing and thinking. An epistemological perspective enables the argument that the medical humanities are valuable not because they are more 'humane', but because they help constitute what it means to think like a doctor.