What do we mean by ‘the Humanities’ in medical education? A scoping review of empirical humanities-based interventions

Despite the longstanding presence in integrating the humanities into medical education, the term 'the humanities' remains inconsistently defined and operationalised across the literature. This scoping review investigates how the humanities are conceptualised, implemented and assessed across empirical studies within medical education. Using the Mak and Thomas (2022) methodological framework, we systematically searched three databases: ERIC, MEDLINE and Scopus. We identified 58 peer-reviewed studies featuring humanities-based interventions (HBIs). Through qualitative content analysis, we developed an operational framework that classifies HBIs into five conceptual categories: (1) ethical reasoning and moral education, (2) narrative and reflective practice, (3) aesthetic and expressive arts, (4) historical and cultural insight and (5) critique and power analysis. While HBIs were commonly used to foster empathy, ethical sensitivity, reflective thinking and professional identity, we observed substantial variability in disciplinary foundations, pedagogical goals and evaluative approaches. This conceptual pluralism, while generative, complicates comparative evaluation and obscures the specific contributions of different humanities traditions. Our findings offer a conceptual map of how the humanities are currently situated in medical education and provide a taxonomy to support greater clarity, coherence and intentionality in the design, implementation and assessment of HBIs across the literature.