School of Arts and Sciences
Medical Humanities Interest Group
The medical humanities add humanistic perspectives to the understanding of illness and health care through interdisciplinary scholarship and research.
By sponsoring research retreats, seminars, poster sessions, visiting speakers, and other special events, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS) Medical Humanities Interest Group (MHIG) fosters a supportive environment for collaborative faculty scholarship and outreach and promotes medical humanities in the wider academic and medical community.
Medical humanities has become an established component of the curriculum at many medical schools. MCPHS is committed to advancing medical humanities initiatives in the health professions. The College’s support of the MHIG demonstrates one of its core values: the integration of the liberal arts and professional studies.
For more information about MHIG events and activities, contact the School of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Dean, at 617.732.2911.
Mission statement
The Medical Humanities Interest Group at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences is a community of educators and scholars that explores and promotes opportunities for the study, development, and application of the humanities as they relate to:
- Experiences of illness and well-being
- The pursuit and provision of health care
- The social, cultural, political and institutional contexts of health care
- The education of health professionals
The MHIG defines the humanities broadly to include philosophy and ethics, literature and the arts, history, anthropology, and related social and behavioral sciences.
The Medical Humanities Interest Group encourages and supports:
Scholarship
- Promoting collaborative research
- Discussing readings, films and other texts of common interest
- Responding to presentations of works in progress by group members
Curriculum development
- Identifying and investigating potential medical humanities pathways and programs
- Enriching continuing education programs
Public outreach
- Sponsoring conferences, invited speakers, and other public forums that engage the larger MCPHS and Longwood Medical Area communities
- Establishing MCPHS as a resource in the medical humanities
The Medical Humanities Interest Group seeks to become a model for the application and study of the humanities at health professions institutions.