Humanities Selectives for Fourth-Year Students
The courses described in this brochure are available to students to satisfy the fourth-year Humanities requirement. The purpose of the requirement is to revisit themes and concerns of the medical humanities, which were introduced in a general way in the basic science years, from the vantage point of students’ growing clinical experience. The courses are designed to permit you to delve more deeply into various topics than was possible in the introductory courses, and to bring your clinical knowledge and experience into direct engagement with humanistic perspectives.
To satisfy the Humanities requirement, each student must enroll in one of the courses described here. You will note that all of our courses carry 2.5 credits and require one-half of a full-time commitment for the four weeks of the course. This means that when you enroll in one of our 2.5 credit courses, there should be time in your schedule either to enroll in another elective that requires a half-time commitment (so that you will earn a total of 5 credits for that block), or to devote yourself to other activities (finalizing the MSR project, preparing for residency interviews, etc.).
This catalog and schedule is posted on the Office of Student Affairs website http://med.psu.edu/web/md/studentaffairs. You can also download a pdf of the 2012-2013 catalog here. This catalog features dates, times, locations, course descriptions, and instructors for each individual fourth-year selective. For more information you can contact the Department of Humanities at (717) 531-8778 or email the individual instructor listed in the catalog.