Solidarity, Origins of the Hospital, and Transformational Ghastly Imagery

Identity formation is a critical moral psychological feature of ethics that is often neglected in health professions education. Inner transformation has been philosophically key from antiquity to the present day, especially for thinkers like Gilles Deleuze and Georges Bataille. Francis Bacon, a favorite thinker and painter of Deleuze, specifically inspired meditation on images of corporeal suffering as part of a "spiritual ordeal" that can provoke a kind of transformation key to health professionalism, deepening human solidarity. This article considers this theme in historical, social, and cultural contexts and as an ethical foundation of some of the earliest known hospitals as well as contemporary pursuits of health equity and moral formation in the health professions.