MH Minor

The Medical Humanities Minor is open to all Honors-eligible (minimum 3.4 GPA) undergraduate students at OU.

The medical humanities comprise the ethical, literary, anthropological, sociological, and historical study of the medical profession, disease, health, and healing. The Honors College at OU advocates the study of the humanities and social sciences to expand students' understanding of humankind and the medical profession's place in it and ultimately to create informed consumers of health care, as well as to further clinical and professional skills. The humanities and social sciences offer students a new set of tools for evaluating the past, present, and future of the healing arts and sciences and for understanding of humankind and the medical profession's place in it, and ultimately creating informed consumers of health care, as well as to further clinical and professional skills. The humanities and social sciences offer students a new set of tools for evaluating the past, present, and future of the healing arts and sciences and for understanding the evolving role of medicine in society.

Students contemplating careers in such fields as medicine, nursing, dentistry, genetics, law, and social work may wish to minor in medical humanities by completing 18 credit hours of coursework in

• the history of medicine 
• literature and medicine 
• medical anthropology 
• medical sociology
• bioethics and medical ethics
• health care policy and politics 
• music and medicine 
• art and medicine

In addition to taking courses in these areas, students develop their "cultural competence" through the study of non-western cultures and a modern foreign language. Through a personally tailored curriculum, students gain an appreciation of the psychosocial dimensions of health and healing and of the larger political and social worlds of which medicine is a part.