[What is the humanistic medicine?].

At the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm's medical university, a new academic discipline was established in 1998. Humanistic medicine, or medical humanities, is a response to the need in an increasing technological medicine for a humanistic dimension in medical education and clinical practice. The mission of medical humanities is to contribute to the understanding of the scientific and ethical structure of medicine. Medical humanities should focus on clinical practice. At the Karolinska Institute, the discipline has three aspects: medical history, philosophy of medical science, and the "medical meeting", i.e. issues such as: What happens in the relation between patient and caregiver? What is the art of medicine? How is suffering and disease expressed in art and literature? Medical humanities can be a tool for critical reexamination and a radical reorientation of the ethos of medicine. After all, health care is at its very core a moral project.