What is the relationship between medicine and the humanities? With its holistic approach to human beings, this collective volume demonstrates how the combined consideration of topics from different scientific disciplines such as history, philosophy, literature, linguistics, anthropology, law, performing and visual arts, etc., contributes to the quality of medical education and the optimal practice of medicine. Specifically, it enhances skills such as communication and observation, acceptance of diversity, ambiguity, and the “paradoxical,” sensitivity to the language and rhetoric of patients, with the aim of optimally understanding their narratives, responding to the major ethical and existential questions raised by illness and death, keeping up to date with issues in epistemology, particularly those relating to technological developments, strengthening professionalism and altruism, with an emphasis on empathy, promoting interdisciplinarity and collaboration, preventing and addressing professional burnout.

The preface is devoted to the anthropological negotiation of the body as collective memory (Marilena Papachristoforou). The first section addresses legal and ethical issues (Stefanos Geroulanos, Caroline Lantero, Georgios Boutlas, Athina Gritzala). The second focuses on issues that appear to be purely medical, but whose social implications lead us to examine them in a more holistic way (Maria Syrou, Petros Petrikis, Anna Liakopoulou, Georgia Aggeli). The third presents the new methodological tools developed by medical science with the help of the humanities (Ourania Varsou, Theodora Tseliga, Kathleen Murphy), while the fourth section focuses on how art and literature deal with illness (Maria Zoubouli, Despoina Papastathi, Aglaia Mela).

Finally, in the epilogue, Aris Sarafianos presents a unified perspective on multiple aspects of the relationship between medicine and the humanities.

• The editors teach at the University of Ioannina. Specifically, in the Department of Medicine, Rector Anna Batistatou, Professor of Pathological Anatomy, Maria Syrou, Professor of General Biology/Medical Genetics, and Theodora Tseliga, Special Teaching Staff for English Language, while in the Department of Music Studies, Maria Zoubouli is Associate Professor of Cultural History with an emphasis on aesthetic theories.