Seven Types of Ambiguity by William Empson

Medical Education 37 :544-52.īleakley, A., and R.

“Making Sense of Clinical Reasoning: Judgement and the Evidence of the Senses. “Does Undergraduate Curriculum Design make a Difference to Readiness to Practice as a Junior Doctor?” Medical Teacher 33:459-67.īleakley, A., R. Medical Education for the Future: Identity, Power and Location. “Towards a ‘critical medical humanities’.” In Medicine, Health, and the Arts: Approaches to Medical Humanities, edited by V. “Gender Matters in Medical Education.” Medical Education 47:59-70. “Blunting Occam’s Razor: Aligning Medical Education with Studies of Complexity.” Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 16:849-55. “Commentary: Sharper Instruments: On Defending the Humanities in Undergraduate Medical Education.” Academic Medicine 85:938-40.īleakley, A. Medicine, Health and the Arts: Approaches to the Medical Humanities. “Training for Certainty.” Social Science and Medicine 19:949-56.īates ,V., A. William Empson’s ‘seven types of ambiguity’ model for analyzing poetry is transposed to medical education to: (a) formulate seven values proffered by the humanities for improving medical education (b) offer seven ways of measuring impact of medical humanities provision, thereby reducing ambiguity and (c) -as a counterweight to (b) – celebrate seven types of ambiguity in contemporary medical humanities that critically reconsider issues of proof of impact.Īdorno, TW., E. The humanities can certainly educate for tolerance of ambiguity as a basis to learning democratic habits for contemporary team-based clinical work.

While humanities input can offer a fundamental critical counterweight to a potentially reductive biomedical science education, a new wave of thinking suggests that the kinds of arts and humanities currently used in medical education are neither radical nor critical enough to have a deep effect on students’ learning and may need to be reformulated. Skeptics have placed the burden of proof of effectiveness upon the shoulders of advocates, but this may lead to pursuing measurement of the immeasurable, deflecting attention away from the more pressing task of defining what we mean by the humanities in medicine. Inclusion of the humanities in undergraduate medicine curricula remains controversial.

Seven Types of Ambiguity by William Empson