Throughout the day, the symposium explored how narratives, medical figures, and the experience of illness feed into literary writing, as well as medical thought and practice. Several presentations showed how medicine can be viewed as a deeply narrative discipline, in which listening, interpretation, and transmission play a central role. Literature, for its part, has taken up themes such as illness, addiction, suffering, and care, offering sensitive and critical perspectives on the human experience of vulnerability.
The dialogue between disciplines has proved particularly fruitful. On the one hand, doctors have become great writers; on the other, writing and reading are at the heart of advances in medical science and can also have therapeutic power in themselves.
The disciplines of literature and medicine, represented in particular by Simon Absil, Yves Poumay, Elisabeth Leijnse, Emma-Louise Silva, and Anne Roekens, have demonstrated how much they gain from being combined, both in research and in the training of future health professionals.
The day ended with a visit to the anatomy laboratory, followed by a virtual presentation of the BUMP's precious works related to medicine.
