The work of a physician is based on two pillars: scientific knowledge and technical expertise being one of them, the humanities, ethics and philosophy the other. The former is taught at medical school, the latter is often neglected. Of fundamental importance are the classical philosophical questions about what is life and what is human being. Those cannot be answered by a natural scientific approach alone. For this reason and in view of the preponderance of technology in the daily routine in clinics, many medical students and physicians would like to be offered an optional subject which focuses on those philosophical problems: a training in anthropology and philosophy, called Philosophicum. To meet this demand, the University Hospital of Würzburg has been offering a Philosophicum ever since 2010 (www.philosophicum.ukw.de).
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