More and more these days, medical schools require that students become educated in the art as well as the science of medicine and are developing medical humanities curricula for this purpose. The authors have created this interactive DVD-ROM to provide the core materials and narrative structure for the growing number of interdisciplinary courses in this area.

Medicine and Humanistic Understanding examines the doctor-patient relationship, the experience of patients, the changing nature of illness in the twenty-first century, the ethics and practice of everyday medicine, and the goals of medical pedagogy. Featuring interviews with prominent physicians, caregivers, writers, researchers, and philosophers, including Oliver Sacks, John Stone, Rita Charon, Abraham Verghese, and others. This full-featured DVD-ROM makes extensive use of interactive multimedia technologies to present the many ways the practice and understanding of medicine can be enhanced and strengthened by supplementing scientific analysis with narrative comprehension.

The DVD features extended doctor-patient interview simulations and short video demonstrations of emotional reactions of patients. As well, there are numerous dramatizations of literary works by professional actors; the last chapter focuses on Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych in relation to the topics examined in Medicine and Humanistic Understanding and includes extended dramatizations of sections of this novella. The complete text of the novella is included.

Medicine and Humanistic Understanding examines these topics and others in the context of the great success of biomedicine in the last century and its impersonal, mechanical, and material conceptions of disease and the human body. The assumptions and successes of biomedicine cannot and should not be rejected. But these very successes have helped create a need for enlarging the scope of medical education along lines that Medicine and Humanistic Understanding explores.

The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to sponsor continuing medical education for physicians.

The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine designates this educational activity for a maximum of twelve (12) category 1 credits towards the AMA Physician's Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those credits that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.

The American Medical Association has determined that physicians not licensed in the US who participate in this CME activity are eligible for AMA PRA category 1 credit.