Moral Formation Through Art: What a Christian Narrative Might Offer Medical Education in Age of Novelty
John Braucher, MTS (c), Medical Student, Duke Divinity School, Medical College of Georgia
In a recent sermon by N.T. Wright, given at the end of the Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts conference, Wright observes that “our western culture has lurched to and fro…between either boring continuity…or trivial novelty.” Mirroring this, Wright states that the “constant challenge in the arts is to avoid mere novelty, but also to avoid mere repetition.” The Art of Medicine might easily find itself, with its countless new imaging techniques, tests, and therapies, lurching towards trivial novelty.
The challenge of the modern physician, it seems, is akin to that in the arts: how to avoid mere novelty, while also avoiding repetition. How then might medical education form physicians capable of this task? It seems unlikely that the answer might come from within the very institution that Wright states has “been told for the last two hundred and fifty years that [it] was the new thing” through which this world has been transformed. Instead, we might look to Art, which has wrestled with this dichotomy for far longer than physicians. I intend to argue that art, specifically when viewed through a Christian narrative, might be a valuable form of moral formation that will better enable the modern physician to navigate the modern medical landscape. Art, viewed through the Gospel narrative, can reorient one to the standard of revelation that has transformed the world, providing an internal compass for the modern physician.
The challenge of the modern physician, it seems, is akin to that in the arts: how to avoid mere novelty, while also avoiding repetition. How then might medical education form physicians capable of this task? It seems unlikely that the answer might come from within the very institution that Wright states has “been told for the last two hundred and fifty years that [it] was the new thing” through which this world has been transformed. Instead, we might look to Art, which has wrestled with this dichotomy for far longer than physicians. I intend to argue that art, specifically when viewed through a Christian narrative, might be a valuable form of moral formation that will better enable the modern physician to navigate the modern medical landscape. Art, viewed through the Gospel narrative, can reorient one to the standard of revelation that has transformed the world, providing an internal compass for the modern physician.