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Student and Faculty Showcase

Students enrolled in Medical Humanities courses have abundant opportunities to create and display original work related to their studies. Through campus publications, coursework, and student-led service and pre-professional organizations, students explore and examine both the history of medicine as well as its continuing development. The products of their investigations in and out of the classroom express powerful insights and analyses across a range of topics, from pressing public health concerns to revolutions in art and social attitudes.

Faculty for the Medical Humanities minor unite a variety of perspectives and backgrounds for a unique interdisciplinary learning experience. Courses for the Medical Humanities draw on expertise from departments such as Romance Languages, English, Philosophy, History, Art, Classics, African and African American Studies, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Beyond the College of Arts and Sciences, Medical Humanities faculty include affiliates with Bernard Becker Medical Library and the Center for the History of Medicine.

Headline image: “The Metaphorical Virus” (May 2020) by Angela Chen is a visual representation of metaphors in the COVID-19 pandemic, where subjective judgments follow the objective virus in its shadows. Chen (Class of 2023) is a writer and illustrator for Frontiers and is majoring in biochemistry. 

Faculty Spotlight

Rebecca Messbarger

Rebecca Messbarger is a Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies of Italian, Affiliate Professor of History, Art History, Performing Arts, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is the co-founder and First Director of Medical Humanities. In her new podcast, "The Eye: A Medical Humanities Podcast" Messbarger and recent Medical Humanities graduates will look through the lens of the arts and the humanities at stories of injury and repair. Click the link below to listen now!

The Eye: A Medical Humanities Podcast

Undergraduate Research Opportunities and Achievements in Medical Humanities

Irene Hamlin has been awarded the 2021 Harrison D. Stalker Award from the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. The award is given annually to a graduating biology major whose undergraduate career combines outstanding scientific scholarship with significant contributions in the arts and humanities.

Read about Irene

Under the Skin

By Haley Pak, Class of 2023, for "The Art of Medicine" Beyond Boundaries Course, I60 Beyond 130 (Spring 2020).
"I've always found it problematic that doctors are often perceived as cold overseeing machines, as it dehumanizes medical care into an elitist industry that cuts off patient to physician communication. Medicine must, above all, prioritize the fundamental physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of all people, including those who work in the industry."