Medical humanities: new frontier or back to the past?

In nomenclatural terms Medical Humanities is a relatively new discipline. Originating in the United States and Australia almost simultaneously, Medical Humanities is seen by many as a means of ‘making better doctors’ by adopting analytical and methodological strategies from the humanities and importing them into medical education. In the United States this remains its principal application and, as this definition from New York University’s School of Medicine suggests, it broadly encompasses the arts, humanities and social sciences: