HISTARTMED in Villa Clara: a space of history, art and medicine integration
COMUNICATION

 

HISTARTMED in Villa Clara: a space of history, art and medicine integration

 

HISTARTMED en Villa Clara: un espacio de integración de historia, arte y medicina

"Te one who only knows about medicine, not even about medicine he/she knows".

José de Letamendi (1828-1897)

 

 

Paz Maritza Franco Pérez1, Luisa María Sáez Ferrán2, Francisca de la Caridad Alcántara Paisán3

1MD. Specialist in Human Anatomy. M Sc. in Medical Education and in Bioenergetics and Natural Medicine. Associate professor. Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences. Cuba. E-mail: maritzafp@infomed.sld.cu
2Bachelor in Nursing. M Sc. in Bioenergetics and Natural Medicine. Associate professor. Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences. Cuba. E-mail: luisamsf@infomed.sld.cu
3Bachelor in Nursing. M Sc in Psycho-pedagogy. Assistant professor. Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences. Cuba. E-mail: francisap@infomed.sld.cu

 

 

ABSTRACT

The development of a comprehensive culture is an important aspect in the formation of the professionals of the medical sciences, so that they can act as guardians of health and culture promoters in Cuba and the rest of the world; but to achieve this objective it is necessary to integrate history and art knowledge and their linking with the profession, this one has been the objective of the HISTARTMED project. In this special issue of EDUMECENTRO Journal, the authors intended to expose through the present research paper the results reached by Villa Clara province in this outstanding university project.

MeSH: History, art, medicine, integral general culture, education, medical.

RESUMEN

El desarrollo de la cultura general integral es un aspecto importante en la formación de los profesionales de las ciencias médicas, para que puedan desempeñarse como centinelas de la salud y promotores de la cultura en Cuba y el resto del mundo; pero para lograr este objetivo es necesario integrar conocimientos de historia, arte y su vinculación con la profesión, lo cual ha sido el objetivo del proyecto HISTARTMED. En este número especial de la revista EDUMECENTRO, las autoras se propusieron exponer a través de la presente comunicación los resultados alcanzados por la provincia Villa Clara en el trascendental proyecto universitario.

DeCS: Historia, arte, medicina, cultura general integral, educación médica.

 

 

HISTARTMED is a cultural scientific project designed with the objective of increasing the cultural background of students and professionals of the medical sciences through the linking of history and art with medicine. The name derives of the union of these three branches of knowledge: HIST, from history; ART, from art and MED, from medicine, and it has three identifying symbolic images, the gold mask of Tutankhamen, Doctor Gachet `s Portrait of Vincent van Gogh and The Anatomy Lesson of Professor Tulp of Rembrandt1.

It began in the year 2005 led by the Ph. D. in Medical Sciences Néstor Santiago Rodríguez Hernández, Full Professor, Specialist in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, born leader, charismatic, capable man that faced death with the courage of the great ones and he became immortal through his wonderful HISTARTMED project, he also demonstrated that someone can be a brilliant scientist and at the same time a man of vast culture2.

At the beginning, HISTARTMED appeared through the lectures of Internal Medicine that linked those three branches, to try to motivate the students of the third year of the Medicine career of the "Julio Trigo López" Faculty, of Havana University of Medical Science to study the contents of this subject in an interesting and interactive way.

An example of such a pedagogic creativity was the lecture on hypertension where it is let to know that the first time that the blood pressure was checked, it was done by reverend Stephen Hales (1677-1761), a vicar graduated from Cambridge that studied sciences besides Theology, specially Botany and Chemistry. Hales spent many years trying to measure blood pressure, until after tying the artery of an old horse, he introduced in it a copper tube in pipe form, in the other end he placed a 9 feet long and 1/6 inch of diameter glass tube vertically, he untied the rubber band allowing to pass blood that according to him, it went up 8 feet and 3 inches. In accordance with the diameter of the tube and to the height of the column you can calculate that the horse would have about 190 mmHg of systolic pressure, similar to the one found in a struggling horse using the more updated manometers3.

The above mentioned center of studies of the Cuban capital gave birth to this project which while linking history and art with medicine it has been able to attract personalities of these three branches who are also interested in aspects of the general culture.

Since the year 2005 the multidisciplinary colloquies HISTARTMED have taken place annually, becoming cultural parties that have been held in all the faculties of the medical sciences of Havana and other medical sciences universities of the country; in these last ones they have carried out the base events since the academic year 2014-2015, they have been organized by the departments of university extracurricular activities.

Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences has the HISTARTMED professorship that carried out its first base event on May 15 2015 where 58 papers were presented for 76,3 participation%. The works showed appropriate scientific rigor and they included novel topics. 7 prizes were granted, 8 of them passed to the national event, besides, the most outstanding presentations were also granted the right to issue the paper in the EDUMECENTRO Journal in a special issue.

In the national colloquy HISTARTMED 2016, Villa Clara obtained the "MD. Mercedes Batule Batule" researching student´s prize with the work "The mortal medicine of Nazism" of the students Arlenys Pérez Valdivia and Halbert Hernández Negrín, of the 5th year and David Padilla Cueto, a 4th year student, they are from the Medicine career of the Medical Sciences University, which was openly recognized, together to other founding and follower centers of the project, in its tenth Anniversary4.

This way, the authors have pretended to recognize the participation of students and professors from Villa Clara in the project dedicated to enlarge the cultural horizon of medicine and to make out of them, not only good professionals of the health branch but also more cultured people matching with the tendencies of current times.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES

1. Coloquio Multidisciplinario sobre Historia, Arte y Medicina. Histartmed 2005. Disponible en: http://directorioeventos.sld.cu/

2. Catálogos de obras audiovisuales. Dr C. Néstor Rodríguez, un ser HISTARTMED. (Internet). Disponible en: http://audiovisuales.sld.cu/contenidos/358/

3. Cameron JS. Villain and victim: the kidney and high blood pressure in the nineteenth century. JR Coll Physicians Lond:1999;(33):382-394.

4. HISTARMED 2016. Cencomed. Disponible en: http://promociondeeventos.sld.cu/histartmed2016/2015/04/21/universidad-de-ciencias-medicas-de-villa-clara/

 

 

Submitted: Mar, 24 2016.
Accepted: April, 4 2016.

 

 

Paz Maritza Franco Pérez. Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences. Cuba. E-mail: maritzafp@infomed.sld.cu

Copyright (c) 2016 EDUMECENTRO