Medical Humanities & Ethics Certificate Program
Small-group discussion among Certificate Program students
Photograph courtesy of Andrew Kirkpatrick
Since 2007, UTHealth has offered students the opportunity to enrich their medical humanities education through participation in elective courses, lecture series, volunteer opportunities, writing workshops, and directed research programs. Our unique certificate program encompasses all four years of medical school and confers a special transcript and dean recognition upon graduation.
How Our Program is Different
Many medical schools have electives and special service learning activities designed to enhance students' medical training. Few, if any, have a certificate program that encompasses all four years of medical training with structured programs and learning opportunities that allow students to reflect, share, and work together to enhance their individual and collective capacities to see and care for the patient, not simply the disease. Students completing this program receive special designation on their permanent transcript, in their Dean's letter, and at graduation as a John P. McGovern Humanities Scholar. They will also have the opportunity to present research papers at various venues in the Texas Medical Center and at national meetings.
Program Goals
- To enhance the traditional medical curriculum, given medicine is both an art and a science;
- To explore medicine through the lenses of history, ethics, law, literature, religion and spirituality, social science, cultural studies, and the arts by providing students with insight into the human condition and a patient-centered approach to medical care;
- To enhance students' abilities to cultivate that most important instrument of healing—their individual selves;
- To assist students in becoming culturally competent, ethical, and compassionate caregivers.
Guiding Principles
- Modern medicine is in search of a soul. The crucial question is this: Can the institution of medicine continue to take advantage of the benefits of science and technology, without losing its own human essence?;
- We believe that medicine exists in the truest sense when science, technology, and the craftsmanship of the physician are applied with the deepest respect for the humanity of the patient.