Medical Humanities
Offered at IU Indianapolis by School of Liberal Arts.
About
The graduate program in medical humanities offers an interdisciplinary course of study drawn from the humanities and social sciences disciplines of liberal arts, as well as courses and participation of faculty from other schools. The field of medical humanities provides students with qualitative humanistic and sociocultural perspectives on healthcare, in contrast to the clinical/objective approach traditionally taken in biomedicine.
The science, study, and practice of medicine and health are multifaceted in scope and impact. Many factors affect the outcome of health practice, which in turn affects patients, families, and the greater public.
The primary goal of the Graduate Certificate in Medical Humanities (15 credit hours) is to enrich students' humanities-based education and professional development, whether they are preparing for graduate work in the health professions or looking to supplement and enrich their existing degree and/or health-related career.
This program gives graduate students the opportunity to study medicine, health, and illness from the perspective of such disciplines as literature, philosophy, history, and social science. Students view past, present, and future problems in healthcare from multiple and varied standpoints and work to resolve them using narrative, visual, ethical, historical, and social science methods. Through this approach, students gain greater insight into the human condition, the value of human life, the nature of suffering, and efforts to alleviate it.
This program will be of great interest to students whether they plan to go on to specialized training — i.e., in medicine, allied health professions, and graduate-level disciplinary or interdisciplinary studies — or to enter (or continue in) the health workforce.