Students learn medical skills from medical schools and hospital residencies. They learn the humane treatment of patients from the humanities and human experiences. Traditionally, the primary sources of the humanities have been history, literature, philosophy and theology . Consider human history . The humane and inhumane activities of people in the past do not escape the historian's search.
History hides neither, but exposes both for the world to see.
Grand achievement and noble, selfless actions in the past make us proud of our nature, but diabolical, uncaring activities cause us shame. History, in giving us a complete spectrum of past human activities, teaches us about ourselves and others. Literature presupposes that humane actions are good and inhumane are evil. It strives to offer the reader the beauty and goodness of humane treatment, and encourages and often persuades the reader to do likewise. And it offers inhumane activities by depicting them as loathsome, coloring them as hideous monsters and sanctioning them to be slain and abandoned.