Dr Ian Walsh and Dr Helen Noble, from Queen’s University Belfast, are the Guest Editors of a Special Issue entitled “Humanities and Healthcare” in the journal Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032). We invite you to contribute a paper (free of charge) to this Special Issue.
Healthcare involves humans, with human–human and human–machine interactions. This is only one explanation for why healthcare is neither an exact science, nor an entirely artistic pursuit. Effective clinical practice demands mastery of both technical and nontechnical skills, within a complex hierarchy of human interactions. Healthcare systems have evolved in a convoluted fashion, rendering them often opaque and confusing. Central characteristics of healthcare provision, such as compassion and empathy, further complicate the picture. Cracks can appear in a façade that is increasingly (and rightly) concerned with patient safety; it is within these cracks that potential for improvement exists.
Collaboration of healthcare with the arts and humanities augments education and practice, simultaneously providing an invaluable substrate for the humanities, exemplified by humanito-centric narratives and sociomedical interactions. Immersion in arts and humanities allows for a freeing and expansion of cognitive processing for healthcare practitioners, as well as facilitating a deeper appreciation of the human condition. Creative artists can further improve healthcare provision in this way, beyond extant arts-based therapeutic interventions.
For further reading, please follow the link to the Special Issue Website.
Please note that Article Processing Charges are waived for papers for this special issue.
The submission deadline is 31 July 2017. You may send your manuscript now or until the deadline. Submitted papers should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. We also encourage you to email a short abstract or tentative title to the Editorial Office in advance. The Editors are happy to discuss potential submissions. For further details on the submission process, please read these instructions.
Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032) is an international, scientific, open access journal on health care systems, industry, technology, policy, and regulation, and is published quarterly online by MDPI. Because it is an open access journal, papers published will receive high publicity. The current Editorial Board members are listed here. The list of Special Issues can be found here.
If you would like to contact the guest editors, please email Dr Ian Walsh or Dr Helen Noble.