CENTER FOR BIOMEDICAL ETHICS AND HUMANITIES

Humanities and Ethics in Medicine Electives for Fourth-Year Medical Students

University of Virginia School of Medicine
2009-2010

Students in their fourth year are encouraged to round out their medical education at U.Va. with study of the medical humanities and biomedical ethics. Humanities and ethics study can help students (1) cultivate skills of critical and reflective thought; (2) reflect on ethics, values, traditions, spiritual concerns, and professional life; (3) explore the many dimensions and contexts of human experience; and (4) attend to their own formation as professionals. Skills acquired and refined through study of the humanities and ethics contribute to humanistic qualities and professional competencies that medical schools and residency programs routinely assess, including communication and narrative skills, compassion, self-reflection, ethics and professionalism, respect for others, cultural understanding, and understanding of medicine in society.

Humanities electives are offered throughout fourth year. Most are four-week courses. A student may take up to eight weeks total of humanities credit toward graduation. Courses are offered only if there is an enrollment of at least four students

U.Va.'s medical humanities electives address core competencies as follows:

Narrative Medicine and Professionalism
Literature and Medicine
Images of Medicine in Film, Literature, and Visual Arts
Interprofessional Seminars in Ethics & Professional Life

Biomedical Ethics
Ethics in Healthcare Systems
Medicine, Law, and Ethics  

Reflection and Spirituality
Religious Traditions and Medicine
Mindful Practice/Mindful Life
Suffering, Medicine, and Faith

Cultural Competence
Culture and Medicine
Elementary Medical Spanish - Language & Culture     
Intermediate Medical Spanish - Language & Culture

Medicine and Society
History of Medicine
Public Health in Fiction and Film
Ethics, Society, and Human Biology

All competencies
The Calls of Medicine
Independent Research in Humanities

For detailed descriptions, see
http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/handbook/electives/humanities/index.cfm

or http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/handbook/electives/humanities/index.cfm

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HUMANITIES AND ETHICS IN MEDICINE ELECTIVES

2009-2010

All courses are four weeks unless otherwise noted.

Rotation 7: 21 September-17 October 2009 (drop by 24 Aug)

  • Elementary Medical Spanish - Language and Culture (3520), directed by Rafael Triana, taught by Beatriz Cortabarria. Offers introductory-level intensive instruction in basic medically related Spanish and looks at cultural issues relevant to the care of Spanish-speaking patients. No prior knowledge of Spanish required.

Rotation 8:  19 October-14 November 2009 (drop by 21 Sept)

  • Religious Traditions and Medicine (3501), directed by James Childress, with faculty of the Department of Religious Studies and School of Medicine. Examines the world's major religious traditions' views of and responses to the body, health, illness, suffering, and death, and, through case studies, explores relationships between religious understandings and ethical practice of medicine.
  • Medicine, Law, and Ethics (3910 - two weeks), Rotation 7B, 5-17 Oct), directed by Patti Tereskerz and Lois Shepherd. Provides through case study an understanding of legal principles and ethical theory and approaches to legal and ethical issues commonly encountered by physicians in practice.

Rotation 9:  16-21 November and 30 November-19 December 2009 (drop by 19 Oct)

  • Mindful Practice, Mindful Life (3522 - two weeks, Rotation 9A, 16-21 Nov; 30 Nov-5 Dec), directed by Julie Connelly. Explores mindfulness as a practice helpful both to the physician's clinical work and personal well-being.
  • Culture and Medicine (3507), directed by Gertrude Fraser. Focuses the anthropologist's lens on Western biomedicine as a cultural system, on the learning and practice of medicine, and on health disparities in the U.S. due to gender, race, and class..

Rotation 10: 4-30 January 2010 (drop by 7 Dec)  

  • Literature and Medicine (3503), directed by Marcia Day Childress. Examines fiction and nonfiction, poetry, drama, and film having to do with doctors, patients, illness, and life in medicine, with emphasis on physician writers and the issues that interest them, and attention to narrative practices common to both literature and medicine.
  • Public Health in Literature and Film (3517), directed by Ruth Gaare Bernheim, with other faculty. Explores public health and health policy issues through the cultural lenses of literature and popular cinema.

Rotation 11:  1-27 February 2010 (drop by 4 Jan)

  • Images of Medicine in Film, Literature, and the Visual Arts (3508), directed by Hunter Groninger. Explores images and conceptions of physicians and the patients they see, and looks also at the diverse social and cultural contexts in which medicine is practiced.
  • Medical Spanish - Language and Culture (3515), directed by Rafael Triana, taught by Beatriz Cortabarria. Offers intermediate-level intensive instruction in medically related Spanish and examines cultural issues in the care of Spanish-speaking patients. Prior study and knowledge of Spanish required.

Rotation 12:  1-27 March 2010 (drop by 1 Feb)

  • History of Medicine (3506), directed by Luke DeMaitre. Explores the history of medicine through study of landmark texts, changing understandings of the body and certain diseases, and the evolution of medical institutions.
  • Ethics in Health Care Systems (3907), directed by Donna Chen and Ann Mills. Examines organizationally based health care with emphasis on the ethical responsibilities of and issues for physicians in complex patient care delivery systems.

Rotation 13: 29 March-24 April 2010 (drop by 1 March)

  • The Calls of Medicine (3523), directed by Daniel Becker, with faculty of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities. Uses the humanities-literature, history, the arts, religious and spiritual studies, cultural studies, etc.-to frame and facilitate reflective exploration of illness and doctoring and the ethics and values of professional life.

By arrangement in any Rotation, 1 through 13:

  • Research in Humanities (3509, up to 8 weeks), directed by Marcia Day Childress, Julie Connelly, Daniel Becker, and other faculty. Independent research and writing or creative arts projects on a topic in the humanities or related to the human and socio- or biocultural dimensions of health or illness. Proposal must be approved at least one month in advance of project start date.
  • Ethics, Society, and Human Biology (3521, 2 to 8 weeks), directed by James Childress. Independent projects on issues of medicine, ethics, and society pursued within the university-wide Institute for Practical Ethics & Public Life, especially in conjunction with the Institute's interdisciplinary projects.
  • Suffering, Medicine, and Faith (3514), directed by Margaret Mohrmann. Explores patients' and physicians' spiritual beliefs and practices as these influence understandings of the body, health, illness, suffering, death, and medical practice.

By arrangement, throughout the year

  • Interprofessional Seminar in Ethical Values & Professional Life (3518, sections A, B, and C; one week), directed by Marcia Day Childress and Ruth Gaare Bernheim. Each seminar enrolls a mix of students from Medicine and Law, Medicine and Graduate Arts & Sciences, or Medicine, Law, and Darden. Readings from literature spark consideration of moral and ethical dimensions of professional life. Seminars are taught by pairs of faculty from Medicine, Law, Darden, or Arts & Sciences and meet five evenings through the academic year. This elective runs concurrently with other electives.