Abstract:

In 2020, it was decided at Sheba Hospital, Tel Hashomer, the largest hospital in Israel, ranked as one of the ten best hospitals in the world, to establish a Teaching Authority. The purpose of the Teaching Authority is to unite under it all the educational, pedagogical and training actions conducted by agents from various factors in the hospital, to supervise them, to give them a uniform educational language and to create a synergy between the various teaching and assessment forces in the hospital.

As the first step in establishing the teaching system, the hospital's director general, Prof. Yitzhak Kreis, appointed Prof. Gadi Segal, a talented and experienced lecturer and physician, to head the teaching. The latter decided to gather a group of specialist doctors from all walks of the hospital to form a team who's goal would be to articulate a pedagogical language for the new TA. In a strange turn of events, it was decided that the writer of these lines, as a co-operation with Ono Academic College, would accompany the team in formulating this educational language through reading various humanistic texts.

This paper will describe as a Qualitative study (via Participant Observation) the fascinating learning process that the group went through and discuss the influence of humanistic work (literature, philosophy, poetry, and other art forms) on the formation of the necessary professional and personal identity in the act of establishing an educational and pedagogical center. We will elaborate as to the Syllabus of the groups' meetings and show results of a questionnaire-based study of the effect these meetings had. We will claim that this process is representative example as to the focusing power and relevance Humanistic Studies have even for the most practical of professions: To seek wisdom and self-knowledge from the great achievements of thousands of years' worth of humanistic creation as a necessary step in any pedagogical initiative.

Keywords:

Humanistics, medical doctor, philosophy, literature, adult education, experimental education.