Learning
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HHV encourages interdisciplinary thinking and combines coursework in the medical humanities and social sciences with an internship experience and capstone senior seminar.
This minor allows me to understand and interact successfully in new situations because I am able to think critically about the social and cultural environments that produce disease and health outcomes.
ERIN RADEZTSKY, CLASS OF 2020
Required Courses
Designed to build off of one another, the four required courses grant an interdisciplinary perspective, but also allow you to gradually focus on a more specific area of inquiry for your internship, capstone, and an optional thesis.
The aim of the course is to introduce students to modes of methodological inquiry common to the humanistic and social sciences, and to bring those methods to bear on the subject matter and conceptual framework(s) of science, health , medicine, and healing. Pedagogically, the course is innovative, and frequently makes use of a “guest students” – UA faculty from the humanities, social sciences, health sciences, community members who have experienced illness and medical treatment, health professionals, community organizers and activists, and artists working at the intersections of health, healing, and society. Guest students read the week’s materials along with the students, attend class, and contribute to discussion. The format combines co-delivered lectures of a reasonably short duration, followed by vigorous discussion, enabled by the use of new collaborative learning spaces that engage active learning strategies. The course emphasizes critical thinking, abstract conceptual thinking, comparative methods, and the uses of social scientific and humanistic methods in the consideration of science, health, medicine, and healing.
This course, designed for students in the Health and Human Values minor, explores specific social scientific and humanistic topics in the field of health, likely to be important for students planning careers in the health professions. Topics vary from semester to semester, but will be drawn from fields such as narrative medicine, ethics, history of medicine and disease, medical anthropology, sexuality studies, and the like, taught by an instructor with special expertise in the field. The course is taught in a discussion/seminar format.
The HHV Internship enables students to gain experiential knowledge of the social, cultural, and psychological dynamics of health care. Students gain skills and background knowledge for understanding the challenges and opportunities involved in providing health services to a broad range of populations and in a variety of contexts. These might include disadvantaged and minority populations, immigrants, border communities, local non-profits, and/or international NGOs. The internship experience involves working on a semester-long project, reading books and/or articles that provide contextual background for understanding the internship site, conducting independent research, and thoughtfully reflecting on one's experience and sharing them with peers. HHV Internships aid students in career development and exploration; gain real-world experience, learn how to develop a professional network, and build skills in professional communication, time management, and problem-solving.
Taught each Fall Semester. The capstone course for the minor is project-based, and is taught by a humanist or social scientist, with input and classroom visits from appropriate experts relevant to specific projects. Each student will develop a unique semester-long project that makes use of their specific coursework and internship studies to produce an innovative and practical intervention in health care on a small scale. Students will be guided by a design innovation model, to be taught in the classroom, asking them first to identify a real-world problem in the health care field. The entire class, along with the instructors and occasional project-appropriate guest instructors, will brainstorm the problem, after which the student will (individually or in a small group) design a solution and, where possible, implement the solution in the community. Presentations of final projects will be made to a panel of faculty and community stakeholders, and will include rotating Q & A sessions with panel members.
Electives
Electives are taught by diverse faculty from the Franke Honors College and throughout the University of Arizona. These include faculty from American Indian Studies, Africana Studies, Anthropology, Communications, Economics, English, History, Sociology, Medical Humanities, Religious Studies, Anthropology, and Philosophy.
The minor in Health and Human Values requires three electives: HNRS 395M, one Humanities elective, and one Social Sciences elective chosen from the following list of approved courses below.
All courses for the Health and Human Values minor, including electives, must be taken for honors credit.
Multiple Use of Courses: students may use 6 units, or 2 courses for multiple requirements. Courses may be taken for other major or minor degree fulfillment. Note: cross-listed courses will also be accepted
CLAS/ANTH 313 - Health and Medicine in Classical Antiquity
HNRS 302 - Modern Art and Mental Illness
HNRS 210 - Art and Anatomy
HNRS 252 - Writing the Body
HIST/MENA 485M/585M - Medicine and Power in the Middle East
MUS 429/529 - Music. Health, and Wellness Story Lab
PA/PHIL 321 - Medical Ethics
PHIL 347 - Neuroethics
RELI 303 - Spirituality and Sickness: Religion and Health in the U.S.
ANTH 325 - Bodies in Medicine: Introduction to Medical Anthropology
COMM 369A - Health Communication
SOC 303 - Health and Society
SOC 410 - The Hospital as a Small Society: The Social Organization of Medicine
HPS 387 - Health Disparities and Minority Health
PHPM 310 - Health Care in the U.S.
RELI 336 - Spirituality, Psychology, and the Mind
Degree Plan
View the dropdown for a fillable form of the required HHV classes.
See where our HHV graduates have gone on to further their academic studies upon graduating from the University of Arizona, W.A. Franke Honors College. View HHV Grad Paths.