93997 - Medicine and Scientific Research

Learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding: Students must achieve good knowledge of the complex relationship between science and arts, not only in medicine but, more in general, from a gnoseological perspective complexity/efficiency of the healthcare system. Applying knowledge and understanding: Students must be able to apply the acquired knowledge to concrete problems of clinical practice and research activity. Moreover, they will be able to apply the learned methods to the analysis of the various issues regarding the treatment of patients. The use of images from arts will support and promote new attitudes and methodological approaches useful for the students’ future personal and professional experience, either as clinicians or researchers. Making judgements: Students will have to develop critical and reflective skills on methodological problems and on the relationships between specific theoretical positions and recent empirical results. Communication skills: Students should acquire the ability to critically discuss the aesthetic experience and its neurobiological correlates along with their impact, if any, on clinical practice and scientific research. Learning skills: Students should be able to learn the most recent theoretical approaches and the main investigation techniques related to the course topic.

Course contents

1. Medicine and scientific enterprise.

2. Diagnostic method and scientific discoveries

3. Resources and needs: responsibility in management

4. Craft, technique and technology

The integrated course Ars Medica includes also the following arguments

ART, SCIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE

1.the aesthetic experience

2.the underpinning neural mechanisms

3.pain and suffering, the neural basis of empathy.

4.the mirror neurons

THE DIMENSION OF HEALTH CARE

1. Treatment as an aid to caregiving

2. Quest for health, quest for salvation

3. The diseased person and the disease

4. The surprising birth of the hospitals and the new challenges

Readings/Bibliography

The Lancet, Volume 371, Issue 9606 [http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/vol371no9606/PIIS0140-6736(08)X6002-7], Page 14, 5 January 2008

The Lancet, Volume 376, Issue 9740 [http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/vol376no9740/PIIS0140-6736(10)X6142-6], Page 500, 14 August 2010

Teaching methods

Lectures with slides. At the end of each lecture a pdf with the powerpoint presentation will be distributed to students. Pdfs with the powerpoint presentations of the lectures will be the material to be reviewed for the written exam at the end of the course.

Attendance to learning activities is mandatory; the minimum attendance requirement to be admitted to the final exam is 66% of lessons. For Integrated Courses (IC), the 66% attendance requirement refers to the total amount of I.C. lessons. Students who fail to meet the minimum attendance requirement will not be admitted to the final exam of the course, and will have to attend relevant classes again during the next academic year.

Absences may be authorized upon receipt of proper justifying documentation, in case of illness or serious reasons. Excused absences do not count against a student’s attendance record to determine their minimum attendance requirement

Assessment methods

Written examination, consisting of:

-open questions on some of the paintings showed during the course

-multiple choices quiz

The final score will be computed by attributing a maximum score of 10 to each of the 3 questions, for a maximum final score of 50/30.
The evaluation of open questions is based on the following criteria:
1) Content skills or how detailed the candidate addresses the topic;
2) Exposing skills, i.e., how precise is the language used by the candidate to expose the concepts;
3) Argumentative skills, that is, how consistent and logical is the concatenation of the concepts presented.

Teaching tools

Frontal lectures with audio-visual material.

Office hours

See the website of Francesca Bisulli