「醫學人文學科」裡，文學研究與醫學之間存在著對話交流。德語「Krise」語意曖昧，通常意指危險的關鍵頂點，最初使用於醫學背景。2014 年，德裔冰島作家克里斯托夫‧馬格努森出版小說《醫學小說》，描述醫師專業與個人日常生活的各種危機。書名取自德語，意指化名撰寫、結構簡單的小說，以醫療背景，平裝小冊形式平價出售，主要寫給教育程度較低的讀者，被歸類為瑣碎文學。馬格努森的這部文學敘事並未以典型的日常醫療情節為主，例如年輕住院醫師或迷人的主治醫師與護士之間的愛情故事。相反，小說的重心放在主角在柏林大型醫院擔任急診醫生的工作上，尤其描寫其為緊湊工作而活。書中講述哪些醫學專業危機？當代德語文學中使用哪些敘事技巧、修辭和寫作策略來說明這些危機？由於馬格努森小說從醫生角度多樣展現危機，因此特別適合作為範例進行分析。
德國作家醫生勾特福理特‧本恩也曾創作過從醫學視角探討危機問題的文學文本。本恩的文本呈現不同的醫生視角：談論一名醫師因語言危機而自我中心地走上詩人之路的故事。他的中篇小說《大腦》（Gehirne）能與馬格努森的小說進行分析與比較。馬格努森描述經歷個人中年危機 的醫生所遭遇的問題，展現了需要醫療協助的病患所面臨的突發情況。 德國社會弱勢缺乏足夠照顧的問題也被突顯，點出國家衛生系統危機。危機可以成為對過去事件進行批判性反思的基礎，更能是決定性的轉折。
In the interdisciplinary feld of the “Medical Humanities” there is an exchange of discourses between literary studies and medicine. The ambiguous German-language term “Krise” (“crisis”) describes a difficult situation or the decisive climax of a dangerous development and was first used in a medical context. In 2014, the German-Icelandic author Kristof Magnusson published his novel Arztroman (Medical Novel), which particularly addresses crises in the professional and personal everyday life of the physician’s profession. Its title plays on the German-language term for a subgenre of pseudonymously written novels that have an extremely simple structure; they are set in a medical setting and are sold in the format of inexpensive paperback booklets. They are written for readers with a low level of education and are classified as trivial literature. However, Magnusson’s literary narrative is not dominated by the typical problems in the everyday clinical life of a young assistant doctor or charming head physician who has a love story with one of the nurses. Rather, the focus of his novel is on the work of the protagonist, an emergency physician at a large Berlin hospital. Above all, she lives for her exciting work and is only called to the emergency doctor’s car for serious cases. What kind of crises in the medical profession are told? Which narrative techniques, rhetoric and writing strategies are used to illustrate these crises in contemporary German-language literature? Since Magnusson’s novel reveals crises in different ways from the physician’s perspective, his novel is particularly suitable for an exemplary analysis.
In the past, the German writer and medical doctor Gottfried Benn (1886-1956) also wrote literary texts that touch on the question of crisis from a medical perspective. Benn’s text presents a completely different perspective of the physician, who is egocentrically initiated into becoming a poet through a language crisis. Therefore, excerpts from his novella Gehirne (Brains) may be addressed in the analysis and compared with Magnusson’s novel. Magnusson does not just describe the problems of a physician who is going through a personal crisis in her mid-forties. He also describes with great accuracy the unexpected emergency situations of ill people who need medical help. At the same time, the lack of adequate care for the socially disadvantaged in Germany is highlighted and the problem of the crisis in the state health system is addressed. Crises can be used as a basis for a critical reflection on what has happened before, in order to consider them as decisive turning points.