In a medical school library where more than 97% of the collection is digital, a few shelves of physical books serve a purpose that no search query could ever satisfy. They invite students to slow down, step into someone else’s experience, and remember the human being behind a diagnosis.
That’s the idea behind the medical humanities collection at the School of Medicine Library. Curated by Katie Houk, undergraduate medical education librarian and a tenured associate professor, the roughly 400-volume collection brings stories, history, ethics, art, and even comics into scientific training.
“Medical humanities is the integration of the humanistic fields into medical training,” Houk says. A large part of the work involves narrative medicine: reading and discussing fictional or true stories to build empathy for patients, connect physicians with one another, and encourage reflection on the physician-patient relationship and the profession itself.
The benefits of medical humanities extend beyond reading. Looking closely at a painting can sharpen observation and interpretation, skills physicians use in clinical settings. Journaling, drawing, painting, or working with clay can offer a restorative outlet during medical education. For Houk, these activities support learning, well-being, connection, and meaning.
‘Comforting and Nostalgic’
Houk joined UNLV in 2017, two weeks before the medical school’s first class arrived. The library, then located in the medical school’s previous building, occupied a space with tables and study booths, but no shelving, little natural light, and almost no visible sign of library services.
“We were 99% digital,” Houk says. “The students were like, ‘What are we?’ We’re a library, but there are no books.” She saw physical books as a way to soften the room and make it feel more conducive to study and discovery. Even when people are not reading them, she says, books provide “the suggestion of available knowledge” and create a sense of possibility.
“I think it's also just comforting and nostalgic in a way because it reminds you of being a kid,” she says. “And I think people who get this far in their education, probably had a very strong connection to reading as children, because literacy is so important for education and being a citizen of the world.”
She began with graphic medicine, which uses comics – the combination of sequential art and text – to tell stories about health and healthcare. The format can be especially effective in portraying internal experiences, including anxiety, depression, trauma, and other conditions that may be difficult to communicate in words alone.
The school of medicine’s library became one of the first medical libraries west of the Mississippi with dedicated physical and online graphic medicine collections. Houk built the collection around areas that reflect both the school’s educational mission and the community its graduates will serve: patient and caregiver experiences, physician perspectives, mental health and well-being, veterans, women’s health and obstetrics and gynecology, LGBTQ+ health, disability, aging, and end-of-life care.
“Our trainees are going to go out and work in Las Vegas, hopefully,” Houk says. “We are a very diverse community, with lots of different ethnicities, religions, gender identities, and sexual orientations represented. If I can present stories and narratives that help them think more deeply and critically about the community, then I feel like that’s helpful in creating better physicians.”
The print collection has grown to about 400 titles, with approximately 60 to 80 added each year. Houk tries to purchase print and electronic versions.
Houk finds books through academic review sources, librarian selection tools, recommendations from physicians, popular reading lists, and requests from students and faculty. Early on, the Gold Humanism Honor Society’s reading lists for compassionate physicians helped guide her choices. Titles connected to those lists carry a small spine badge, as do books highlighting women in science and medicine.
Among Houk’s favorites in medical humanities is Paul Kalanithi’s “When Breath Becomes Air,” the posthumously published memoir of a neurosurgeon confronting terminal cancer. What began as a memoir became, she says, a moving contemplation of life and death. She also recommends The Radium Girls, Kate Moore’s history of women who fought for justice after becoming ill while painting luminous watch dials with radium.
Beyond the Shelves
Filling the shelves is just one part of Houk’s work. Through the library’s Art of Wellness series, students, faculty, and staff gather over lunch for activities such as journaling, origami, drawing, painting, and modeling clay. The library also supports an annual exhibition and author talks connecting medicine and storytelling. Houk has shared UNLV’s approach internationally, including a presentation in Scotland on medical humanities programming.
Her larger hope is that faculty will incorporate passages from the collection into courses such as bioethics and Nevada community medicine, and that the school might revive a common-reading program. Most of all, she wants students to know the books are there whenever they need a different way to learn – or simply a break.
The School of Medicine Library is open 24/7 by card access to medical school students, faculty, and staff. Readers can browse the medical humanities and graphic medicine collections online, borrow print titles from the third floor, or suggest a purchase through the library website.
