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Arts and Sciences
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Undergraduate
Minor

Medical Humanities

Seton Hall's minor in Medical Humanities provides an interdisciplinary approach to medicine and healthcare, bringing together fields in the humanities, social sciences and the arts. It utilizes the unique strengths of each of these fields to engender a rich and nuanced understanding of the various ways human beings experience and express their perspectives and narratives on wellness and sickness, life and death, and what constitutes a life worth living, with the primary goal of humanizing and fostering compassionate and more effective healthcare.

This minor is intended to complement student career goals in medicine, nursing and related health professions. It is also an excellent choice for any student who seeks a deeper understanding of the human condition.

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Curriculum

The Medical Humanities Minor requires 18 credits of coursework and is designed to give students a multidisciplinary foundation in the ethical, psychological, and social dimensions of healthcare. Students complete two required courses (6 credits): Biomedical Ethics and one Religious Studies or Catholic Studies course related to health/healthcare, broadly construed.

Then, students select four electives (12 credits) from three academic disciplines, such as literature, psychology, nursing, philosophy, and sociology. Courses include Modern Society and Human Happiness, Illness and Literature, Health Psychology in a Diverse Society, Dimensions of Psychosocial Nursing, Philosophy of Death, Sociology of Health and Medicine and many more.

View the detailed curriculum and elective options »

Capstone Project

Students will work one-on-one with a faculty member and conduct research in the medical humanities and humanistic medicine. Research will culminate in a Capstone Project, wherein the students will explore and produce a final work, such as a research paper or poster relating what they have learned in medical humanities-related courses to a medical or healthcare related practice, e.g., the use of narrative medicine or the application of biomedical ethics training in a clinical setting. This project should demonstrate the student's proficiency in the concept of humanistic medicine and healthcare and humanities-based perspectives on health and illness.

If you would like more information about the Medical Humanities Minor, please contact the director of the minor, Aleksy Tarasenko-Struc at [email protected]. 

Faculty Listing

Aleksy Tarasenko-Struc posing
Aleksy Tarasenko-Struc
Assistant Professor; Director, Medical Humanities Program
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Travis Timmerman
Chair and Associate Professor
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Colleen Conway
Professor of Religious Studies and Chair
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Yvonne Unna
Associate Professor
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