In 2003 the university reform will provide for the faculty of medicine to include, as part of its plan of studies, literature, philosophy, bioethics and art courses.
This requirement is related to the fact that physicians are increasingly expected to face matters which are not related to the purely scientific side of their qualifications, but nevertheless influence their choices and their performance both in experimental fields and in the treatments provided to patients.
As far as we are concerned, we have always thought that scientific qualifications should be supported by a general cultural background also including the humanities and, based on this conviction, we have organised and designed the publishing project for Leadership Medica: in this regard, we have always viewed the physician’s role as hinging on its scientific globality, as far as diagnosis and therapy are concerned, but have also acknowledged the great importance of the human approach to patients in carrying out the medical profession.
Now, at a distance of years, we are obviously pleased to see that our policy has at last also been adopted by universities, where scientific studies have so far been kept apart from merely cultural subjects, because viewed as redundant and almost incompatible.
Another step forward (which will certainly be taken again in some years’ time) will be to give scientific papers and books a format that may make reading and studying easier and more enjoyable, since the trend today continues to involve the use of almost illegible print and of anonymous graphics. We are starting the new year by talking about the changes in the air coming from the university field, to somehow break through the catastrophic atmosphere hanging about the world, with ongoing and possible wars, as well as assassination and cloning attempts, which from day to day the mass media report as warning signals of imminent wholesale destruction.
A simple and hopefully propitiatory question springs to mind: why on earth should unfortunate circumstances decree that we actually turn out to be the most wretched in word history? We happily renounce this privilege, hoping to get through another year, sharing as usual the worries and woes which mankind has always been used to!
Translated by interpres sas