VU Rector Prof. Rimvydas Petrauskas opens the coference / MF archive
On 23-25 January this year, Thinking Through Motherhood: Images, Experiences and Narratives Across Time, the final conference of the MotherNet network took place at Vilnius University. MotherNet is an international interdisciplinary project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and implemented by the Faculties of Philology, Philosophy and Medicine of Vilnius University in collaboration with Maynooth University in Ireland and Uppsala University in Sweden.
The main objective of the project is to develop maternity-focused studies by bringing together researchers from different disciplines – medical and healthcare, humanities, law, social sciences, business, media and cultural studies. “This conference is an excellent example of international academic cooperation. The MotherNet project has already laid the groundwork for a number of important studies on social challenges and the role of motherhood in the modern world,” said Prof. Rimvydas Petrauskas, Rector of Vilnius University, when opening the conference.
Rūta Morkūnienė / MF archive
The conference was attended by representatives of the Faculty of Medicine from Vilnius University – Rūta Morkūnienė, a researcher from the Department of Anatomy, Histology and Anthropology at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, and Professor Diana Ramašauskaitė, Head of the Clinic for Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Institute of Clinical Medicine.
“Thanks to the MotherNet project’s wide network of researchers, I was introduced to the field of Medical Humanities and had the opportunity to attend an introductory course in Medical Humanities at Uppsala University’s Medical Humanities Centre. Medical Humanities is an interdisciplinary field of medicine that encompasses the humanities (philosophy of medicine, ethics and bioethics, history of medicine, literary studies and religion), the social sciences (psychology, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and the geography of health), and the arts (literature, theatre, cinema and visual arts), and their application in medical teaching and practice,” said Rūta Morkūnienė regarding her participation in MotherNet.
She explained that the medical humanities are based on interdisciplinary research methods that provide insight into the experience of health and illness, focusing on subjective, hidden or often invisible personal experiences. “The contemporary critical strand of Medical Humanities argues that the arts and humanities offer a perspective, complementary to the exact sciences. They offer us different ways of thinking about human history, culture, behaviour and experience that can be used for the analysis, critique or change of certain healthcare practices. They can also assist in the acquisition and further development of ‘soft’ competences, both in the process of studying medicine, as well as in the work of the medical sector,” explained Ms Morkūnienė.
MotherNet project closing conference / MF archive
She highlighted that Medical Humanities can help medical students and doctors to see problems from more than one perspective, and develop critical thinking, empathy, respect for patients, and clinical ethics, to create closer or more meaningful relationships between doctors, their colleagues and their patients. “The topic of Medical Humanities is being integrated into medical curricula as an elective course, and there is a growing demand for such research, which requires the involvement of researchers from several disciplines,” the researcher said.
Thanks to the MotherNet project, Morkūnienė and Prof. Ramašauskaitė, in collaboration with researchers from Vilnius University’s Faculties of Philology and Philosophy, have launched a new interdisciplinary study in the medical humanities arena on the impact of premature birth, the condition of the new-born and the psychosocial climate in the hospital, that considers women’s mental health indicators and their relationship with their new-born. The study interweaves the disciplines of medicine, psychology, philosophy and literature, combining research methods specific to these fields.
“This is a deep, multi-layered research study, unique in both structure and vision, which will help to analyse and better understand the subjective experiences of mothers of premature newborns. We believe that the results of such a multidirectional study will have the greatest impact, will contribute to the improvement of perinatal care, and help to develop recommendations for psychosocial support for mothers and families of premature newborns,” said Ms Morkūnienė.