Medical philosophy: The forgotten necessity in medical education

Philosophy of medicine is the overlap of the philosophy and medicine disciplines. It examines the underlying concepts of the overt and covert phenomena of medicine and the associations among them by inquiring fundamental questions. In this review, we have tried to evaluate the various aspects of philosophy and medicine, explain the necessity of integrated teaching of these disciplines, and analyze the state of medical philosophy education in Iran and around the world, in order to emphasize on the importance of this issue and provide practical solutions to eliminate the current limitations.

A comprehensive search was conducted in the Magiran, SID, Noormags, Iranmedex, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Embase databases, using the keywords related to philosophy, ethics, education, teaching, medicine, medical sciences, and their Persian equivalents. The records were extracted till the end of Bahman 1399 for Persian databases, and till the end of February 2021 for English databases. The articles were reviewed based on their consistency with the research subject, and all related articles were evaluated and critically reviewed. After classifying the results, determining the articles' differences, and with reference to the previous studies, the research components were defined and analyzed.

After extracting the chief components related to the research subject and matching its key concepts among the selected articles, the research results were ultimately presented in four topics, including the definition of the philosophy of medicine, the state of medical philosophy worldwide, philosophy of medicine in Iran, and the approaches to integrate the philosophy and the medical education.

By valuing the worthiness and the morals of medical philosophy, we can be rewarded with the advantages of integrated medical education and philosophy. The results of the previous academic courses in medical philosophy in educational centers around the world confirm the benefits of integrating philosophy into medical education.