Humanities Education
of the Center for Humanism in Medicine
University of Virginia medical students in the fourth year are encouraged to enrich their medical education with humanities study and may take up to three months of humanities course work. The Center for Humanism in Medicine introduces the humanities and arts into the UVA medical curriculum with the goal of making patient care given by our students and graduates every bit as human as it is biomedically and technically expert.
Integrating humanities and arts into medical education allows students to explore illness experience, life-stages and culturally patterned behaviors; as well as human values, traditions, and spiritual and ethical concerns; cultivating skills of critical and reflective thinking; and acknowledging primacy of caring interpersonal relationships in healing. By its very presence in the medical school, humanities education reminds students, as well as the medical school as a whole, of the human dimensions of medicine.
Humanities Electives 2006 - 2007
Period 4: 18 September - 14 October 2006
Death in America/Palliative Medicine (3516)
Directed by Leslie Blackhall and Marcia Day Childress
Death in America/Palliative Medicine integrates clinical and academic teaching about how our culture and medicine think about and respond to death. Students are involved in end-of-life care in the Palliative Care Unit and on the Palliative Care Consultation Service and participate in humanities/ethics seminars.
Period 5: 16 October - 11 November 2006
Religious Traditions (3501)
Directed by James Childress and Farhat Moazam
with faculty of the Department of Religious Studies
Religious Traditions 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.
Elemenatry Medical Spanish - Language and Culture (3520)
Directed by Rafael Triana, taught by Pello Huesa
FILLED for 2006-2007; students may be wait-listed.
Elementary Medical Spanish 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.
Period 6: 13 - 18 November, 27 November - 16 December 2006
Mindful Practice, Mindful Life (3522)
Directed by Julie Connelly
Two weeks only, 13-19 Nov. & 27 Nov.-1 Dec.
FILLED for 2006-2007; students may be wait-listed.
Mindful Practice, Mindful Life explores mindfulness as a practice helpful both to the physician's clinical work and personal well-being.
Period 7: 8 January - 3 February 2007
Literature and Medicine (3503)
Directed by Marcia Day Childress and David Morris
Literature and Medicine 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 issues interesting them, and attention to narrative practices common to both literature and medicine.
Public Health, Environmental Health and Medicine (3517)
Directed by Ruth Gaare Bernheim, with other faculty
CANCELLED FOR 2006-2007
Public Health in Literature and Film explores public health and health policy issues through the cultural lenses of literature and popular culture.
Period 8: 5 February - 3 March 2007
Images of Medicine in Film, Literature and the Visual Arts (3508)
Directed by Hunter Groninger
Images of Medicine explores images and conceptions of physicians and patients they see, and looks also at the diverse social and cultural contexts in which medicine is practiced.
Culture and Medicine (3507)
Directed by Gertrude Fraser
Culture and Medicine focuses the anthropologist's lens on Western biomedicine as a cultural system, on the learning and practice of medicine, and on the health disparities in the United States due to gender, race and class.
Medical Spanish - Language and Culture (3515)
Directed by Rafael Triana, taught by Pello Huesa
FILLED for 2006-2007; students may be wait-listed.
Medical Spanish 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.
Period 9: 5 - 31 March 2007
History of Medicine (3506)
Directed by Luke DeMaitre
History of Medicine explores the history of medicine through study of landmark texts, changing understandings of body and certain diseases, and the evolution of medical institutions.
Death in America/Palliative Medicine (3516)
Directed by Leslie Blackhall and Marcia Day Childress
ACE (advanced clinical elective) limited to 4 students
Death in America/Palliative Medicine integrates clinical and academic teaching about how our culture and medicine think about and respond to death. Students are involved in end-of-life care in the Palliative Care Unit and on the Palliative Care Consultation Service and participate in humanities/ethics seminars.
Period 10 : 2 - 28 April 2007
Suffering, Medicine and Faith (3514)
Directed by Margaret Mohrmann
Suffering, Medicine and Faith explores patients' and physicians' spiritual beliefs and practices as they influence understandings of the body, health, illness, suffering, death and medical practice.
By Arrangement in Any Period, 1 Through 10:
Research in Humanities (3509, up to 8 weeks)
Directed by Marcia Day Childress, Julie Connelly, Daniel Becker and other faculty
Research in Humanities develops independent research and writing or creative arts projects on topics in the humanities or related to the human and sociocultural dimensions of health or illness. Proposals must be approved at least one month in advance of beginning projects.
Ethics, Society and Human Biology (3521, 2 to 8 weeks)
Directed by James Childress
Ethics, Society and Human Biology develops 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.
By Arrangement, Throughout the Year:
Interprofessional Seminar in Ethical Values & Professional Life (3518, two sections, A & B; one week)
Directed by Marcia Day Childress and Ruth Gaare Bernheim
FILLED for 2006-2007
Interprofessional Seminars enroll a mix of students from Medicine and Law, and Medicine, Law and Business. Readings from literature spark consideration of moral and ethical dimensions of professional life. The seminar is co-taught by faculty from Medicine, Law and Business and meets five evenings through the year, running concurrently with other electives.