Medicine's human element
Health care comes with ethical questions and cultural issues: death, life experiences, cost, diversity and more.
Use select courses in the humanities, arts and social sciences to find answers and develop skills. Increase your insight into the patient-caregiver link or prepare for non-medical careers.
Choose your certificate
Medical Humanities
This certificate is jointly offered by the Department of Languages, Cultures and Religions and the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Gerontology. The certificate provides a cross-disciplinary study of cultural and personal engagement with illness and health. The program offers social, historical, rhetorical, and artistic approaches to urgent questions of bodily experience that are often limited to scientific medical paradigms. The certificate will assist students in a variety of disciplines to develop skills for empathizing with the experiences of others, interpreting personal challenges and tragedies in life stories, understanding ethical dilemmas and notions of moral responsibility, and evaluating complex arguments about the practice and costs of health care in contemporary society. Such diverse perspectives will greatly enrich courses of study in health-related fields as well as any fields of critical inquiry into human cultures and communities.
This certificate is administered by the Department of Languages, Cultures and Religions.
Program requirements (12 hours)
- Four courses from the following but no more than two with the same course code: ANT 317(3), ECO 504(3), ENG 563(3), ENG 570(3); GER 309(3) or PSY 309(3); GER 363(3) or PSY 363(3); GER 370(3) or PSY 370(3); HST 529(3), IPE 376(3), IPE 377(3), LLT 321(3), PHI 313(3), REL 338(3), REL 347(3), REL 348(3), REL 358(3), REL 368(3), REL 378(3), SOC 341(3), SOC 375(3).
- All candidates must satisfy the General University Certificate Requirements.
Completion requirement
Attain a GPA of at least 2.50 or higher in courses used to complete the certificate requirements.
Why earn a certificate in medical humanities?
- Enhance your résumé for medical school or the health care profession. Increase your ability to deal with key issues like empathy, ethics and well-being.
- Apply your knowledge to other fields like the social sciences and humanities. Become better equipped to pursue non-medical roles in health care and health insurance.
- Gain a greater understanding of how the human experience affects health care, social barriers and wellness.
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Immersive academics
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