Student Perspectives
We are delighted to share student perspectives on the meaning of the Medical Humanities to their intellectual and personal lives.
Ella Castanier (COL’24)
The medical humanities initiative has been the highlight of my academic experience at Georgetown thus far. . . . Studying medical humanities has become imperative to me since living through the covid-19 pandemic has proven to me how important it is to bring a social, cultural, and historical approach to medicine and public health.
Jacob DeAnnuntis (COL’23)
Intro to Medical Humanities is easily one of my favorite courses that I’ve taken at Georgetown. . . . [Through it] I realized how vast the field of medical humanities really is, with medicine being influenced by history and culture at every turn.
Schuyler Gaillard (SOM’24)
The medical humanities shape us, inform how we practice medicine and how we approach our patients, and impact medicine at all levels including socioeconomic, political, personal, and spiritual.
Angelette Pham (COL’24)
What I love most about the medical humanities is its focus on the human in medicine. It investigates medicine in the context of the people both giving and receiving care. I think this perspective on medicine is crucial to providing more holistic and just care moving forward, a passion I hope to pursue in my career as I continue to be a student of the medical humanities.
Siva Rajamarthandan (SOM’23)
Medical Humanities cultivates the skills and passion to look beyond the scientific picture and honor the dignity of the whole person. It is impossible to navigate this interdisciplinary field without learning that human understanding thrives not just through experience, but even in our imaginations. All the teachers in this program inherently nurture and challenge their students to embrace patients’ glaring stories and nuanced symbols with resilience, humility, compassion, and hope.
Kayla Zamanian (SFS’23)
I wish I had found this field sooner. For the longest time, I felt pressured to choose between my gravitation towards history, literature, and philosophy and my curiosity about infection, disease, and the hard sciences. The medical humanities reveal not only that these interests go hand in hand, but that they are actually indispensable to one another.