Message from the Director: Thomas Cole, Ph.D.
Year after year, I am inspired by our students. Each August, they arrive with the same goals and desires, the same fears and needs. As they enter the halls of biomedicine, students often wonder what will become of their humanity. They are hungry for knowledge and expertise but no less hungry for guidance and nurture. They want to learn to be healers, to connect with their patients.
Photograph courtesy of ttweak
Our Mission
The McGovern Center addresses the dehumanizing forces in health care today. We study and work to bridge the gaps: between the real and the ideal, between molecules and meaning, between the scientific/technological world of medicine and the power of the human spirit in healing. We bring ethics and humanities to students, while evoking the humanity of students.
Photograph courtesy of Andrew Kirkpatrick
Our Students
"The McGovern Center gave me the opportunity to be involved in a part of medicine that is often overlooked in the already rigorous medical training. There, we are given the freedom to question, challenge, and explore humanistic aspects of medicine taht give us the real Art of Medicine. Because of the Center, I feel that I am a more well-rounded and a better prepared physician."
Stacy L. Norrell, M.D.
Photograph courtesy of Andrew Kirkpatrick
Meet the Brewsters
Wayne is sure he has osteoporosis.
Walter is drunk.
Gloria has cancer.
And Sheila is having an affair.
Photograph courtesy of Archimage
These actual scenarios illustrate the mix of excitement, challenges, and choices involved on both sides of today's doctor-patient equation. For most physicians, medicine is a calling, but many doctors feel constrained by variables out of their control. Patients may feel disconnected from caregivers and long for the compassion and support essential for true healing. In short, today's impersonal health care system challenges the human spirit on every level.
Modern medicine is in search of a soul. And yet, there is great progress and enthusiasm.
The John P. McGovern, M.D., Center for Humanities and Ethics (the McGovern Center) has evolved and flourished in direct response to these health care challenges and opportunities. We address dehumanizing forces by studying and teaching ways in which care and research can be delivered in an ethically-sound, spiritually-informed, and culturally-appropriate manner.
We believe that changing medicine means changing the way we educate and train physicians. Our curriculum feeds the hearts and minds of students in medicine, nursing, dentristry, and other health professional schools at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) . Ultimately, we help students manage the complexities of medicine and science where technical mastery is impossible, ethical problems are difficult, and existential meaning is often in question.