Taking a human approach to health and medicine

To meet the demand for additional breadth in health education, Campion College and the University of Regina are offering a new certificate program in Health and Medical Humanities. The program is geared toward students and health-care professionals already working in the field.

As a physician, when you are treating patients, it’s important to not just treat the disease, but you’re treating the whole person. This certificate is going to help me better understand the societal and cultural aspects of healthcare. —Maliha Jabeen Khan, second-year pre-med student

This unique and pioneering certificate program provides an exploration of the Health and Medical Humanities, an interdisciplinary field that examines the inter-relationships between medicine, health, society, and culture across a range of times and places. How human societies in the past and present construct and engage with health, wellness, illness, medicine, healing, and the body forms the focus of the certificate, drawing from knowledge of social, cultural, and human perspectives.

For those working, or planning careers, in the health professions, the certificate provides the opportunity to frame their professional contexts within the theoretical and applied considerations of the health and medical humanities.

“As a physician, when you are treating patients, it’s important to not just treat the disease, but you’re treating the whole person,” said second-year pre-med student Maliha Jabeen Khan. “This certificate is going to help me better understand the societal and cultural aspects of healthcare, which will allow me to provide care that’s in the best interest of the patient.”

Comprising 15 credits of course work, the certificate can be completed in two academic semesters.

Visit the Health and Medical Humanities Certificate website to learn more.

“There continues to be a need among health professionals, and students in the health fields, to better understand the historical, cultural, and social factors relating to working in health contexts,” said Christian Riegel, Professor of Health Humanities at Campion College at the University of Regina. “This certificate is designed to help students and professionals gain insight into the role of the humanities, creative arts, and social sciences in understanding the complexities of health in professional settings, in scholarship, and in their own experiences as potential patients.”

“Additionally, the certificate provides grounding for students in any discipline in the theoretical and applied aspects of the health and medical humanities as an academic subject in its own right. The flexible delivery of the program allows enrolment from across the country, and indeed anywhere in the world.”