PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Downie, R S
TI  - Literature and medicine.
AID  - 10.1136/jme.17.2.93
DP  - 1991 Jun 01
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - 93--98
VI  - 17
IP  - 2
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/17/2/93.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/17/2/93.full
SO  - J Med Ethics1991 Jun 01; 17
AB  - There are various ways in which medicine and literature interact, but this paper concentrates on the contribution which literature can make to 'whole person understanding'. Scientific understanding is concerned with seeing events and actions in terms of patterns or similarities. But 'whole person understanding' is concerned with uniqueness or with what it is for a given person to have an illness. Literature can in various ways develop this kind of understanding.