Curiosity as Vice? The Virtue of Studiositas in Medical Education
Benjamin Frush, MD, MA, Kennedy Institute for Ethics at Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Medical education, while a process of deep moral formation, lacks any account of how students and trainees are to morally approach the process of learning. The classical understanding of the vice curiositas and the virtue studiositas, as described by the theologian Paul Griffiths in his book "Intellectual Appetite," provides a framework to help understand the better and worse ways that students and trainees can engage in the learning experience.
This paper makes the argument, drawn from my experience in medical school and residency and empirical evidence in medical education literature, that the default posture of learning inculcated is that of the classically understood vice of "curiositas." This vice approaches knowledge as an object of competition in an economy of scarcity-- one that encourages a possessive and defensive mentality, and predisposes one to insecurity and an ever-present fear of being "found out" as an imposter. While such a view of learning may serve functional purpose in medical school, I argue that the experience of clinical care in residency, necessitating effective communication, reliance upon others, and an epistemic humility amidst clinical uncertainty, unmasks the deficiency of "curiositas" and demands the virtuous posture of "studiositas," instead.
In addressing how this virtue can be catechized, I draw on my experience in a Bible Study in residency as a parallel moral community to the medical education/training system as such a locus. Ultimately, the cultivation of such a virtue cannot be approached from a technical (and solipsistic) perspective, but can only be done among friends who share a common view of the good.
This paper makes the argument, drawn from my experience in medical school and residency and empirical evidence in medical education literature, that the default posture of learning inculcated is that of the classically understood vice of "curiositas." This vice approaches knowledge as an object of competition in an economy of scarcity-- one that encourages a possessive and defensive mentality, and predisposes one to insecurity and an ever-present fear of being "found out" as an imposter. While such a view of learning may serve functional purpose in medical school, I argue that the experience of clinical care in residency, necessitating effective communication, reliance upon others, and an epistemic humility amidst clinical uncertainty, unmasks the deficiency of "curiositas" and demands the virtuous posture of "studiositas," instead.
In addressing how this virtue can be catechized, I draw on my experience in a Bible Study in residency as a parallel moral community to the medical education/training system as such a locus. Ultimately, the cultivation of such a virtue cannot be approached from a technical (and solipsistic) perspective, but can only be done among friends who share a common view of the good.