Center for Medical Humanities
The Center for Medical Humanities at Geisinger College of Health Sciences:
- Fosters a multidisciplinary approach to understanding health, illness and healthcare
- Integrates perspectives from the humanities, arts and social sciences
- Promotes a socioecological model of humility that values patients, providers, learners and faculty
The Center for Medical Humanities teaches learners to:
- Approach patients with compassion and humility
- Develop a tolerance of ambiguity that supports a culture of trust
The field of medical humanities encourages engagement with structural and epistemic challenges in accessing healthcare and pursuing health. This ultimately helps to improve access for all communities.
Faculty
Center objectives
Education
- Expand medical humanities education across Geisinger College
- Develop educational offerings for continuing education
Research
- Collaborate across disciplines and the greater health system
- Explore the humanities in medical education and patient care
- Disseminate research in accessible and public-facing ways
Patient and provider care
- Provide patient and provider wellness opportunities grounded in medical humanities methodologies
- Integrate the arts into healthcare spaces
Medical humanities and education
Gesinger Commonwealth School of Medicine students
- Included in the curriculum: The School of Medicine’s Total Health Curriculum integrates medical humanities in 3 of its longitudinal themes:
- Community Immersion
- Personal and Profession Development
- Social Justice and Health Equity
In Phases 2 and 3, narrative medicine workshops are integrated into the transition courses, and students complete parallel charts in their Psychology clerkship.
- Area of concentration: Medical students can also join an Area of Concentration in Medical Humanities. This involves completing:
- 10 hours of additional workshops with reflective writing
- 2 electives in medical humanities during Phase 1; current electives include:
- Intro to Medical Humanities
- Medical Legacies of Scientific Racism and Eugenics
- Social Medicine and the Normative Body
- Teaching and Research Electives in Medical Humanities
- A capstone project under the direction of one of our faculty members.
Learn about the School of Medicine
Master of Biomedical Sciences students
Required course: The School of Gradate Education has the only Master of Biomedical Sciences program that has a required medical humanities course for all students. In this course, students explore the principles of medical humanities, learning the framework and strategies necessary to:
- Better understand the nuances of health and medicine
- Foster empathy and compassion
- Advocate for resilient communities
Learn about the Master of Biomedical Sciences (MBS) degree program
Master of Genetic Counseling students
Integrated throughout the School of Graduate Education’s Master of Genetic Counseling program are medical humanities components, including didactics and workshops integrating disability studies and narrative medicine. This type of integration in a genetic counseling program is another uniquely Geisinger initiative.
Learn about the Master of Genetic Counseling degree program
Opportunities to get involved
Black Diamonds: Arts and literary magazine
Black Diamonds is the School of Medicine’s arts and literary magazine. All Geisinger College and Geisinger community members are welcome to submit their creative pieces for publication. The submission window runs from January to May each year, and the latest issue is published every September. For more information, contact Dr. Amanda Caleb.
Research
Students looking to conduct research in the medical humanities are encouraged to reach out to any of the center’s faculty members. Recent Summer Research Immersion Program projects have included the qualitative analysis of narrative medicine reflections by graduating medical students (presented at Association of American Medical Colleges Northeast Group on Educational Affairs and the Health Humanities Consortium conferences in 2025) and an ethnographic study of family-centered rounding.
