The Medical Humanities Minor

  • Title text reads "You want to..." against a blue and gold background with the following text underneath: Scrutinize health and medicine beyond the biomedical sciences Understand the human condition and human experience of which health, illness, healing, and care form a major part Question how we understand health, illness, and healing Study the relationship between suffering, personhood, care, and our responsibilities to each other Learn how medicine intersects with art and aesthetic expression, creativity, and the imagination Learn from an interdisciplinary and diverse host of prominent experts in their fields
  • Title text reads "What is Medical Humanities?" against a blue and gold background with the following text underneath: Medical Humanities adds new dimensions to your understanding of medicine. It draws from fields such as history, literature, art, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, cultural and gender studies to explore how cultural, social, and ethical factors shape our experience of health and illness. It goes beyond the technical to understand the human experiences of health, illness, and care. It gives you a toolkit to ask tough questions and to look at healthcare with a critical eye, to address root causes and advocate for a fair and more just system. Instead of lectures and textbooks, you’ll find yourself reading novels that explore illness, dissecting ethical dilemmas, exploring archives as you do original historical research, watching films and listening to podcasts that bring medical stories to life, analyzing portrayals of health in art. You’ll work with faculty who are scholars, creatives, and practitioners. Medical Humanities will broaden your perspective and equip you with critical perspective and the skills to shape the future of healthcare.
  • Title text reads "Who might benefit from Medical Humanities:" against a blue and gold background with the following text underneath: The medical humanities minor is open without application to students across the College of Arts and Sciences, SFS, SOH, SON, and MSB. The interdisciplinary nature of the medical humanities makes it a great fit for a wide variety of students, including but not limited to those studying... any major in the soh and son any language african american studies american studies anthropology art and art history biochemistry biological physics any biology major chemistry comparative literature culture and politics english global medieval studies government history justice and peace studies philosophy psychology stia sociology theater and performance theology women’s and gender studies
  • Title text reads "The minor is designed for flexibility and achievement." against a blue and gold background with the following text underneath: the medical humanities minor requires only 3 core courses and 3 electives for a total of 18 credits many electives are cross-listed with other departments in the college of arts and sciences in your last semester, embark on a semester-long individual project in our senior capstone in medical humanities course

Students who study the humanities alongside the sciences develop critical and analytical skills, research expertise, intellectual and cultural community, and balance in their academic careers.

The Medical Humanities Initiative offers a minor in Medical Humanities, Culture, and Society. The minor comes at an opportune time for Georgetown and our greater DC community and brings together traditional strengths of our institution: health education and research and scholarship and teaching in the humanities and social sciences.

The minor is open without application to students across the College of Arts and Sciences, SFS, SOH, SON, and MSB. It is also open (with instructor permission) to graduate and medical student auditors. The minor may be of especial interest to health professions, graduate and medical students, and humanities and social-sciences oriented students drawn to interdisciplinary areas such as history of medicine, science and technology studies, narrative medicine, public health, medical anthropology, sociology, and ethics.

Requirements for the Minor

The interdisciplinary minor in Medical Humanities, Culture, and Society requires six total courses (three core courses and three electives) for a total of 18 credits, and is designed to provide students with a firm foundation in the field. Up to 3 credits can be fulfilled by 1-credit courses.

Course Offerings

Core Courses

  • MHUM-1101: Introduction to Medical Humanities
  • MHUM-2202: Methods in Medical Humanities
  • MHUM-4960: Senior Capstone Seminar in Medical Humanities

Elective Courses

Students will be able to use courses from other programs and departments to satisfy the minor’s elective requirements; this list grows each semester, and we will continue to add to it.

  • ANTH 2250: Intro to Medical Anthropology
  • ANTH 2256: Disability & Culture
  • ANTH 2259: Pandemics, Plagues, and People
  • ANTH 2301: Embodied Lives: Q St Ancestors
  • BIOL 2104/BIOL-2504/HIST-4104: Global History of the Plague
  • BIOL 2600: Select Agents: Biology and Security
  • BIOL 2670: Global Health History
  • CULP 2260: Performance & Narratives of Pandemic Culture & Politics
  • FREN 4773: Maladies/Miracle Cures in 19th Century France
  • GLOH 4402: Convos in Health Global-Local
  • HEST 3355: Health Equity Think Tank
  • IDST 135: Pandemics: Texts & Contexts
  • IDST 2109: Health Inequities in the Time of COVID
  • IDST 2120: Disability Justice at GU
  • IDST 2121: Ethics: Research with Human Subjects
  • IDST 135: Pandemics: Texts & Contexts
  • MHUM 1004: Death in America
  • MHUM 1005: Medicine, Law, Ethics & End of Life
  • MHUM 1007: The Problem of Suffering / IDST-2122: The Problem of Suffering
  • MHUM 1008: Ethics of Research with Human Subjects
  • MHUM 1103: Literature and Medicine
  • MHUM 1110: War, Death, and Remembrance
  • MHUM 1111: Public Health Ethics / PHIL-2004: Public Health Ethics
  • MHUM 1112: Clinical Ethics / PHIL-2005: Clinical Ethics
  • MHUM 1130: End of Life Ethics
  • MHUM 2100: Birth Narratives
  • MHUM 2210: How to End a Pandemic
  • MHUM 2220: Pediatric Ethics
  • MHUM 2250: War, Medicine, & Care in the 20th and 21st Centuries
  • MHUM 2275: Medicine and the Muse
  • MHUM 2300: Sculpture and Health
  • MHUM 3302: Death in America
  • MHUM 3310: Literature of AIDS & Epidemics
  • MHUM 3320: Medicalization of the Mind
  • MHUM 4450: Aging and Ageism
  • MHUM 4949: Medical Humanities Tutorial
  • PHIL 2001: Bioethics
  • PHIL 2090: Ethics of AI & Health
  • PHIL 4302: Topics in Philosophy of Disability
  • PHIL 8301: Theories of Medical Ethics
  • PSYC 2228: Social Psychology / PSYC-2400: Social Psychology
  • PSYC 3220: Health Psychology
  • SOCI 3709: Sociology of Health/Illness
  • STIA 3257: Global Health Foundations
  • STIA 4969: Mind, Madness, Meditation
  • WGST 2239: Medicine, Race & Gender

This list is not meant to be exhaustive. If students identify other courses that provide significant opportunities to engage with the medical humanities, they should present them to the Director for approval.