Appropriate professional training in the field of infection by HIV (Aids) assumes that treatment and care will be provided in a suitable, ethical and humane manner. Concern with such training has heightened the discussion on how medical training can integrate the acquisition of technical excellence with humanistic traits. Thus, Medical Education starts to incorporate the challenge of adapting itself in such a way as to provide physicians (the end product of its curricula) with both a humanistic and humane education. The Humanities, and specifically the Arts, are disciplines that classically accomplish this function. We postulate and argue that they should be introduced into medical curricula, whether due to their intrinsic value, as a source of aesthetic experience and knowledge, or whether because they can facilitate the achievement of broader objectives within these curricula.
Medical education; humanism; art; HIV/AIDS
