PHILOSOPHY IN THE CONTEXT OF HIGHER MEDICAL EDUCATION

Yuschenko Y. P., Filenko B. N.

MEDICAL EDUCATION

Scentific article

Recently in Ukrainian society a question of whether in fact there is a real need for compulsory study of some social and humanitarian subjects in high school has been widely discussed. Such disciplines include culturol-ogy, sociology, political science, philosophy, religious studies, and history of Ukraine. The philosophy remains the only comprehensive subject that students consider unnecessary in current educa-tional environment. In higher medical education institutions students study philosophy as a fundamental humanitarian discipline to master the basics of the world-view culture and skills of abstract thinking, which correspond to current require-ments and are necessary minimum for creative thinking, ability to critical analysis of ideas, views, opinions of inde-pendently thinking individual, a physician, citizen and scientist. For a long time the philosophy and medicine has existed as integral person- oriented phenomena, intended for its adaptation to the surrounding world. In our opinion, the stereotype as for the fact that union of philosophy and medicine is quite clearly reveals itself only in the context of bioethics has been misinterpreted by a wide circle of scientists. It should be noted that philosophical knowledge is crucial for professional development of physicians not only while communicating with patients and for general expertise, but also for creating a modern synthetic knowl-edge of pathological process and disease in general. It is the philosophy that forms the ability to analyze and syn-thesize the facts, to model logically the specific situation and system thinking. It should be mentioned that process of humanization of medical knowledge, penetration of methodological principles, techniques and concepts of the Humanities into different fields of medicine is tending to be natural. Relationship of individual groups of concepts in medicine with humanitarian knowledge are different as for expressiveness and quality – from indissoluble and close in psychiatry, medical psychology, neurology and epidemiology to quite intermediate in morphological and applied medical knowledge (anatomy, radiology, dentistry, etc.). The philosophy teaches a physician to treat all phenomena and processes in their development, continuous change and indissoluble connection with specific conditions. All this contribute to the formation and development of the physician’s culture of thinking. Disregard of provisions of general relation and correlation of phenomena and processes leads to one-sided reassessment of the value of macro- and microorganism in the development of the disease, diagnostic clinical and laboratory research, the role of the individual systems of regulation of the organ-ism’s vital activity, etc. Due to philosophical categories and principles, physicians investigate the origin of disease and its clinical course, make the diagnosis, find objective processes, occurring in the life activity of the human body, etc. Mastering the basics of philosophical knowledge helps student to become professional expert with the ability to think widely and deeply and act independently. The philosophy promotes creative thinking, helps in the study of clinical disciplines, serves as the basis for perception of new ideas, and uses the acquired knowledge to solve the specific tasks. Consequently, new approaches and mechanisms for forming a positive attitude to the study of phi-losophy, as well as the need to change existing stereotypes in the society should be found in the process of training of medical students.

philosophy, medicine, methodology, education, theory

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