The Honors concentration in Medical Humanities provides students a pathway to medical school and the healthcare profession. This undergraduate concentration supports the analytical approaches based on reason and method used in the sciences and encourages creative problem solving methods, intuitive thinking, and other methods of learning and discovery which facilitate understanding and communication.
While a significant number of programs in Medical Humanities offered at other Universities focus on medical ethics, the WHC Medical Humanities takes ethics as a component of the program, but not the primary contribution from the Humanities. This program requires students to engage in multiple forms of analysis and critique from the perspectives of multiple academic disciplines, such as anthropology, biology, chemistry, creative writing, economics, environmental studies, history, law, literature, philosophy, political science, visual arts, and women's studies. Through a trans-disciplinary approach, students are better able to recognize, identify, and engage the various ways in which understanding (in the form of narratives, patterns, correlations, causal connections, etc.) occurs. Students in this concentration also develop skills in analyzing the source of organizing structures that inform our understanding, and the effects of those structures on individuals, culture, and society. Though students pursue courses relevant to their career interests, a core curriculum, which is inclusive of all the disciplines, serves as the foundation of the Medical Humanities Concentration: Arts, Humanities, and Science.