This essay offers an analysis of the findings derived from a pedagogical case study performed with university students. This study set out to evaluate the effects training in close reading and close writing, applied to literary fictional texts, had on the structural complexity of narrative analysis (SCNA) of participating students. Participants' perceptions of the impact of this training on their reading and writing skills was also monitored. SCNA was measured using Biggs and Collis (1982) SOLO taxonomy and qualitative thematic analysis was employed to analyse a focus-group interview on the impact of the training. The sample was randomly divided into two equivalent groups, one experimental (EG), the other control (CG). Both groups did three evaluations to access SCNA at the same time intervals: pre-training, post-training and follow-up timings of the EG. The CG only received training after they completing all three evaluations. While pre-training results demonstrated similarity across groups at the outset of trial after training, the EG's SCNA increased significantly from pre-test to post-test and became significantly higher than the CG's, which did not differ significantly. The EG's gains were maintained in follow-up. Finally, the interview demonstrated that participants in the EG perceived that the training improved their reading and writing skills.
Film is a popular medium used in healthcare education today. It is found to be especially effective when accompanied with exercises based on humanities practices that encourage reflection. However, this approach can be difficult to achieve. The author considers the close reading and reflective writing exercises of narrative medicine and offers a highly functional humanities-based orientation that can be used easily in healthcare education. But can the same close reading techniques be used to work with film and literature? Adaptation studies imply some adjustments might be necessary. Moreover, while we have lived our lives surrounded by movies, little attention is paid to understanding their visual language. Therefore, the author will look at close reading techniques applied to film and combine these with narrative medicine methods to suggest humanities-based reflective methodologies for working with film in healthcare education.
Pharmacy education is largely based on learning elements of disease and the corresponding elements of treatment, using the natural sciences and the biomedical perspective. While this is central for competent pharmacists in working on the research, production, and use of drugs, many professionals deal with people suffering from ill-health. Developing clinical roles requires, besides the traditional pharmaceutical knowledge, the ability to understand illness experiences from the perspectives of patients and significant others. Health humanities provide important resources to link human traits and biomedical knowledge, essential for sensitive and responsive pharmacy practice. The chapter aims to explore emerging opportunities for pharmacists' thinking and working with patients offered by the developing movement of health humanities and narrative medicine.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.