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"Medicalisation of falling in love": medical students’ responses to Thomas Mann’s The Black Swan

¹ Department of Education, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
² Department of General Practice/Unit of General Practice, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland

Correspondence to:
M Torppa
Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Finland; martina.torppa{at}helsinki.fi

The value of implementing literature in medical education is widely accepted. The initial responses of medical students to Thomas Mann’s short story The Black Swan are described and their resources for making sense of the story are presented. Their written responses revealed that the students interpreted the story mainly through a medical framework and were capable of understanding the story’s complex and existential issues related to medicine. Evident gaps in the students’ interpretations and understanding are discussed and suggestions on using such kinds of intellectual texts in medical teaching are offered.

Keywords: medical student; response to literature; human understanding