Purpose The purpose of this position paper is to start a debate on the need for including Medical Humanities (MH) in the undergraduate medical curriculum of Pakistan and to guide decision making in this regard. Introduction Fifty years ago, C.P.Snow, a scientist and a writer, first started the debate on whether medicine is a science or an art, or both? He asserted that society cannot progress unless the two cultures of science and humanities are brought together. 1 Another great educationist, Abraham Flexner, the man who reformed medical education in the United States of America (USA) hundred years ago, said, a professional physician is one who treats not just the illness, but cares for the whole human being. He recommended that physicians must be trained as scientists as well as humanists. 2 As healthcare becomes more and more complex due to commercialization, patient consumerism, advances in information technology, vast amount of medical knowledge and litigation, public's expectations from the medical profession are rising. They now demand that physicians be not only medical experts but also communicators, collaborators, managers, health advocates, scholars and professionals. Providing ethical and humane care is central to all these roles of medical profession. 3 Therefore, integrating Medical Humanities (MH) in medical curriculum can help to develop more compassionate, humane and professional physicians, thus leading to better health outcomes for patients. 4 The challenge of Medical Education in Pakistan Medical students in Pakistan are disillusioned with their profession and harbour feelings of uncertainty, anxiety and doubt about their future roles and responsibilities. Our graduates lack motivation and commitment towards the practice of medicine. One reason for this may be that our medical curriculum lays an overwhelming emphasis on competencies related to biomedical sciences, is not context based and does not educate students in professionalism and communication skills, competencies which can help them deal with real life problems of our patients. As a consequence, our people have more faith in homeopaths, hakeems, unani (Greek) medical practitioners, spiritual healers and quacks, than in doctors. This scenario calls for some drastic reforms in our medical curriculum. 5-7 The system of medical education in Pakistan follows that of UK where students go directly from secondary school into medical school. Once in medical school, students' learn only what is specific to their training as a doctor. On the other hand, students in USA complete a four year Bachelor's degree first, where they take mandatory courses in humanities and liberal arts such as language, history, literature, drama, music and philosophy which may help to increase their intellectual breadth. In addition, humanities has been a part of medical curriculum in USA for the last thirty years (since 1960s and 70s) whereas UK only incorporated it in 1990s and 2000s. Including liberal arts and humanities courses in our medical curriculum can help in developing a more humane and professional attitude, which will hugely benefit our medical graduates and consequently our patients and the society as a whole. 8,9 Defining Medical Humanities The term medical humanities can be defined as an interdisciplinary field including literature, history, philosophy, anthropology, art, drama, film, music and dance, being applied to achieve the goals of medical education. The word humanities comes from humanism which can be defined as an attitude towards other people or generally "love of mankind" and a study of medical humanities gives us the knowledge and skills to develop this attitude. It is more precisely a depth of understanding rather than a particular content of knowledge and aims to produce physicians who will honour the dignity and humanity of their patients and colleagues as fellow human beings. 10,11 In other words, MH concerns the human side of medicine, and links the interdisciplinary enquiry with the practice of medicine, medical education and research. Furthermore, Vol. 65, No. 4, April 2015 414 POSITION PAPER Teaching of medical humanities in medical universities of Pakistan Nusrat Shah, 1 Syed Moyn Aly 2 1 Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan, 2 Department of Medical Education, College of Medicine, Taif University, Saudi Arabia. Correspondence: Nusrat Shah. Email: nusrat61@gmail.com