Foundations of Health Humanities, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine

Foundations of Health Humanities is a first-year course for medical and physician assistant students that introduces them to the tools and concepts of the health humanities. Focus on the social construction of reality using anthropological frameworks, narrative medicine, ethics, and communication skills The Humanities Curriculum at Penn State College of Medicine integrates applied humanities learning across all four years of undergraduate medical education. Instructors use memoir, drama, fiction, and poetry in contexts where the material meets specific needs in learning, generally within a narrative medicine framework. For instance, there are elective courses in literature in the fourth year of study, and some limited literary sources are integrated throughout phase one (first 1.5 years). Previous curricula involved more direct literary learning, but current curricula makes greater use of visual arts. Humanities offerings are very robust, but are practice-oriented. Faculty tend to utilize those forms of literature that the students see as applicable to their professional goals. This information has been collected for the Post-Discipline Online Syllabus Database. The database explores the use of literature by schools of professional education in North America. It forms part of a larger project titled Post-Discipline: Literature, Professionalism, and the Crisis of the Humanities, led by Dr Merve Emre with the assistance of Dr Hayley G. Toth. You can find more information about the project at https://postdiscipline.english.ox.ac.uk/. Data was collected and accurate in 2021/22.