Medical Humanities (MDHM)
MDHM 142 - THE COLORS OF LIFE AND THE END OF LIFE
Short Title: THE COLORS OF LIFE
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: This course explores lived experience through emotion and color, both in life and at the end of life. The class promotes the accessibility of humanistic themes among STEM-oriented learners in ways that are especially relevant and compelling for students planning to enter into the medical or healthcare professions, or who, one day, will serve as caregivers. Cross-list: RELI 142.
MDHM 201 - INTRODUCTION TO MEDICAL HUMANITIES
Short Title: INTRO TO MEDICAL HUMANITIES
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Examines the history of medicine, concepts of disease vs illness, narrative medicine, health disparities, religion, spirituality, and the role of science and technology on the practices of healthcare. Students will develop skills in close reading, interpretation, historical contextualization, critical thinking. This course (formerly HURC 201) is required for the minor in Medical Humanities. Mutually Exclusive with HURC 201. Credit cannot be earned for both HURC 201 and MDHM 201. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for MDHM 201 if student has credit for HURC 201.
MDHM 216 - QUACKS AND WONDER DRUGS: A HISTORY OF MEDICINE IN CHINA
Short Title: A HISTORY OF MEDICINE IN CHINA
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: What defines a legitimate doctor, and what qualifies as medicine? This course examines the history of medicine in China, focusing on patient-practitioner relationships and drug culture. We will discuss both learned practices, such as herbal medicine and acupuncture, and more unconventional aspects, like quackery and ritual healing. Beyond standard pharmaceutical objects, we will also investigate the roles of food, poisons, and incense in Chinese drug culture. This course aims to broaden your understanding of “medicine” by presenting it in a broader cultural context and exploring how various elements have shaped historical and contemporary practices. Cross-list: ASIA 216.
MDHM 238 - SPECIAL TOPICS
Short Title: SPECIAL TOPICS
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Laboratory, Internship/Practicum, Lecture, Seminar, Independent Study, Lecture/Laboratory
Credit Hours: 1-4
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Topics and credit hours may vary each semester. Contact department for current semester’s topic(s). Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 250 - INTRODUCTION TO DISABILITY STUDIES
Short Title: INTRO TO DISABILITY STUDIES
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: This course examines perceptions and implications of the meaning of disability for society. The course will cover the history of disability rights and offer alternative viewpoints of disability. Implications of this analysis will involve exploration of social justice themes in pursuing disability rights for individuals with disabilities.
MDHM 260 - CREATIVE WRITING AND MEDICAL HUMANITIES
Short Title: CREATIVE WRITING AND MED HUM
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Creative Writing and Medical Humanities explores a wide range of literature that draws us into a conversation about medicine, care, wellness, healing, spirituality, and the body. Through daily discussions and writing prompts, students will gain confidence in their ability to write creatively and concisely about these topics. We will read memoir, essay, poetry, and fiction, from a diverse range of authors who grapple with both the challenges and rewards of medicine. We will consider a variety of perspectives from patients, doctors, caregivers, and family members, and write creatively about our own experiences. This course will foreground both writing and discussion, and challenge students to consider how race, class, sex, gender, and cultural heritage affect individual and collective experiences of healthcare. Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 266 - MEDICAL ETHICS
Short Title: MEDICAL ETHICS
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: A philosophical examination of some of the fundamental issues in clinical ethics, including informed consent, competency, confidentiality, end of life decision making, the definition of death, allocating scarce medical resources, and the role of economic analysis in clinical decision making. Readings drawn from the clinical and philosophical literature. Effective May 15, 2019, this course does not carry D1 credit. Previously offered as PHIL 336. Mutually exclusive with PHIL 336, credit cannot be earned for both classes. Cross-list: PHIL 266.
MDHM 272 - LITERATURE AND MEDICINE
Short Title: LITERATURE AND MEDICINE
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Designed for, but not limited to, students interested in the medical profession, this course introduces the study of medicine through reading imaginative literature--novels, plays, essays, poems--by and about doctors and patients, focusing on understanding ethical issues and on developing critical and interpretive skills. Cross-list: ENGL 272.
MDHM 275 - TOPICS IN HEALTH INEQUITIES
Short Title: TOPICS IN HEALTH INEQUITIES
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: This topics course will introduce students to the most prevalent types of health inequities and prepare them to understand their history and possible interventions within the fields of medicine and public health. Topics vary but may include gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, ability, language, fat bias/weight stigma, immigration, documentation, and nationality. Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 280 - MEDICAL HORROR IN FILM AND LITERATURE
Short Title: MEDICAL HORROR IN FILM & LIT
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Medicine is scary business. So is the body. This course proposes to document the role of literature, painting, popular music, and, especially, cinema have played in memorializing our shared dread over not just the human body’s failures, but also their treatment. While primarily focused on the American twentieth century, this course will begin in Romantic-era Britain with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and will culminate in the very-recent past with Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Along the way, we will attend to the 70s slasher film, the work of body horror’s cinematic dean, David Cronenberg, Japanese cyberpunk, extreme metal and grindcore lyrics, the paintings of Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon, high postmodern literature, any many more texts. We will propose to ask what these narratives can tell us about why we fear the body & its dangers, as well as how that anxiety has changed over time, both in response to changing medical/surgical technology and other developments. These questions will in turn find us asking whether the horrors of embodiment and medicine are inflected by the specificities of the body in question—axes, that is to say, of gender, sex, sexuality, race, and ability. Is there a reason why the overwhelming majority of directors working in medical horror are straight white men? Do depictions of medical aberrations stage and exorcise fears about the otherness about the nonwhite, queer, or female body? Do they enact sadistic fantasies of seeing into—and possibly destroying—these bodies? This course counts towards the elective requirements for the MDHM minor.
MDHM 300 - IMMUNITY IN MEDIA, SCIENCE, AND CULTURE
Short Title: IMMUNITY-MEDIA/SCIENCE/CULTURE
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This course will consider the conceptual history of immunity and autoimmunity. We will track immunity as it migrates from the domains of law and politics into biomedicine. What are the consequences of this provenance? How have seemingly objective medical conceptions of the body preserved or retained this militaristic belief in independence, power, and control? And what are its consequences for those whose bodies are exposed to that domination? How does the history of immunity inspire contemporary depictions of BIOPOC, trans, queer, and undocumented lives as pathogenic to the flourishing of “healthy” bodies and in turn to their state-sponsored exposure to death? We will propose to answer these questions by integrating an interdisciplinary archive of fiction, film, philosophy, and law. Recommended Prerequisite(s): MDHM 201 Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 306 - PERSPECTIVES IN HEALTH AND HUMANITIES
Short Title: PERSPECTIVES HEALTH+HUMANITIES
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: Faculty and advanced graduate or medical students from Rice University, University of Texas School of Public Health, and University of Houston, as well as practitioners in the Texas Medical Center and other professionals, will give talks and lead discussions on different aspects of the health industry, research trends, and patient experiences. Students from other schools may also attend the talks, though Rice students will have additional separate meetings for additional discussion. Students will read essays, case studies, and fiction or watch films to prepare for talks and will complete multiple short assignments as well as a longer research or creative project. Instructor Permission Required.
MDHM 307 - MEDICINE AND EMPIRE IN ASIA
Short Title: MEDICINE AND EMPIRE IN ASIA
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This course explores the intertwining history of medicine and empire-building from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. With a focus on experiences in Asia, we will delve into questions such as: How has medicine played a role in colonial expansion and imperial politics? What is “colonial” about colonial medicine? How to study medicine and empire during the global turn? We will examine a variety of subjects, including epidemic disease outbreaks, science and medicine as “civilizing missions,” ideas of race and racism in science and medicine, and the historical roots of the modern global health movement. We will also examine colonial medicine as a vibrant field of historical research and analysis, exploring the various methodologies and source materials that historians use to dissect the complex relationship between medicine, empire, and global expansion. Cross-list: ASIA 307.
MDHM 310 - TOPICS ON EXPERIENCES OF HEALTH AND ILLNESS
Short Title: PAIN
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: If two people say “ouch” at the same time, are they feeling the same thing? In this course, we will consider this question, among others, in the context of a larger examination of pain as a topic in art, an embodied experience, and a medical phenomenon. We will study the history of representations of pain, the complex renderings of pain in art, the way pain is observed and measured in contemporary medicine, and the challenges of representing different “kinds” of pain. In doing so, we will develop a complex understanding of what Susan Sontag called our “more onerous citizenship” in the “kingdom of the sick” and collectively propose new ways of understanding pain. This course counts towards the electives requirement for the MDHM minor. Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 312 - MEDIEVAL ENGLISH MEDICINE & LITERATURE: INFECTIOUS IDEAS
Short Title: INFECTIOUS IDEAS
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This class explores the social and cultural histories of disease and medical practice in the English Middle Ages and analyzes the ways literature engages them. Cross-list: ENGL 312.
MDHM 315 - RACE, MEDICINE, AND MASS INCARCERATION IN THE UNITED STATES
Short Title: RACE, MED & MASS INCARCERATION
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: There are some two million people locked up in local jails, state prisons, and federal prisons across the United States. Toward the beginning of this multi-disciplinary course, we will examine the historical development of this mass incarceration, as well as racial inequities in America’s criminal justice system. We will then explore some of the medical issues in historical and contemporary U.S. carceral settings, including: medical experimentation on prisoner populations, mental health and suicide, substance abuse, HIV and sexual health, pregnancy and labor conditions, foodborne illnesses, chronic disease, temperature-related medical emergencies, and aging in prisons. Please be advised that some readings for this seminar will refer to instances of violence, sexual assault, and medical trauma. Cross-list: AAAS 317.
MDHM 325 - ETHICAL DEBATES IN MEDICINE: DIGNITY AND WELFARE
Short Title: ETHICAL DEBATES IN MEDICINE
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This course will survey a range of contemporary controversies in medicine, focusing especially on conflicts between promoting welfare and respecting human dignity. Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 330 - TECHNOLOGIES OF HEALTH
Short Title: TECHNOLOGIES OF HEALTH
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This course examines the use of technology in healthcare through the methods of medical humanities, as well as important current debates about the ethics of access to technologies in medicine. Special attention will be paid to the impact and equity of health technology use with diverse populations. Topics may vary for each section offered and will be reflected in the course's "short title".
MDHM 335 - MEDICINE AND THE MUSEUM: CLINICAL AESTHETICS AND THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON
Short Title: MEDICINE AND THE MUSEUM
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: Through weekly visits to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, this class develops key skills and engages relevant themes relating to medicine and caregiving, including observation and description, embodiment and motion, eros and suffering, vulnerable populations, grief and loss, human mortality and spiritual transcendence. Cross-list: RELI 335.
MDHM 340 - GLOBAL HEALTH HUMANITIES
Short Title: GLOBAL HEALTH HUMANITIES
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This topics course will introduce students to the most prevalent types of global health issues and prepare them to understand their history, ethical issues, cultural specificity and possible interventions. Readings will be drawn from the fields of humanities, arts, medicine and public health. Topics will vary; see individual sections for the specific topic(s) offered.
MDHM 359 - RESPONSIBLE AI FOR HEALTH
Short Title: RESPONSIBLE AI FOR HEALTH
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This interdisciplinary course explores how artificial intelligence, machine learning, and related tools are poised to transform healthcare – for better and for worse. Examines the latest uses of these tools in clinical healthcare settings, in public health, and in day-to-day wellness apps. Considers the social, cultural and ethical issues related to the development and application of AI for health. Explores the ways that technology can have unintended consequences that reproduce existing health disparities, especially racial and intersectional health disparities. This course will count as an elective in MDHM minor, the STSM minor, and the ENGL major. It may count as an elective for the DSCI minor (contact the program advisor).
MDHM 378 - POLITICS OF REPRODUCTION: SEX, ABORTION, AND MOTHERHOOD
Short Title: POLITICS OF REPRODUCTION
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: Cultural ideas about reproduction shape how we experience and understand gender and sexuality and ideas about gender and sexuality influence how we view reproduction. As such, we cannot challenge dominant ideas about gender and sexuality without critical conversations about reproductive issues. Because requirements for being considered a “good” woman are so closely connected to what it means to be a “good” mother, any analysis of gender requires critical engagement with ideas about reproduction—even for those of us who plan to avoid parenthood or do not have heterosexual sex. This class focuses on the politics of reproduction in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the social and political relations that shape reproductive issues today. We will assess the ways that different women experience reproduction differently, considering throughout how the construction of gender, race, class, ability, sexuality, and geography inform understandings and experiences of reproduction. Throughout the course, we will take on the paradoxes, horrors, complexities, and joys of reproduction. Cross-list: ENGL 378.
MDHM 397 - TOPICS IN MENTAL HEALTH
Short Title: MENTAL HEALTH IN AMER CULTURE
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: Since the arrival of Covid, we have seen a proliferation of novel therapeutic practices like mental telehealth, as people around the globe cope with unprecedented isolation and require the ability to communicate, confess, and introspect with a professional, a stranger. This course will investigate several things. First: what is the history of psychotherapy both in the US and globally? How, in other words, did we get here? And second: how have literature, film, and now social media represented this changing history back to us? Have our understandings of conditions like depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, and psychosis come to be thought—and even lived—as, themselves, essentially cinematic and literary experiences? Has social media now assumed some of this responsibility of narration and explanation? And if so, to what end? This course will examine the works of authors such as Poe, Plath, Lynch, and Moshfegh. Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 402 - HEALTH, HUMANISM AND SOCIETY SCHOLARS MEDICAL HUMANITIES PRACTICUM 1 (1 YR SEQUENCE)
Short Title: HHASS MED HUM PRACTICUM 1
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Internship/Practicum
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Prerequisite(s): MDHM 201
Description: Students are matched with medical humanities research projects in TMC. Students conduct 6-8 hours of research per week under guidance of on-site supervisor and follow curriculum under guidance of Rice faculty, developing skills for careers after graduation. Yearlong sequence continues as MDHM 403 in spring. Must have completed MDHM 201 and at least 9 credit hours in a humanities discipline for course eligibility. Instructor Permission Required. Recommended Prerequisite(s): Humanities or Social Science Major Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for MDHM 402 if student has credit for HUMA 402.
MDHM 403 - HEALTH, HUMANISM AND SOCIETY SCHOLARS MEDICAL HUMANITIES PRACTICUM 2 (1 YR SEQUENCE)
Short Title: HHASS MED HUM PRACTICUM 2
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Internship/Practicum
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Prerequisite(s): MDHM 402 or HUMA 402
Description: Students are matched with medical humanities research projects in TMC. Students conduct 6-8 hours of research per week under guidance of on-site supervisor and follow curriculum under guidance of Rice faculty, developing skills for careers after graduation. Continuation of MDHM 402 as yearlong sequence. Instructor Permission Required. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for MDHM 403 if student has credit for HUMA 403.
MDHM 410 - ETHICS AND THE HUMAN BODY
Short Title: ETHICS AND THE HUMAN BODY
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This course will explore the ethical significance of the human body and human body parts, focusing especially on the implications of this ethical significance for medical practice. This course will count towards the electives requirement for the MDHM minor.
MDHM 415 - UNMASKING MADNESS
Short Title: UNMASKING MADNESS
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: How does literature complement medicine in its definition of madness? Is madness simply a mental illness or can it be socially-constructed? In this course, we will demystify such questions through the exploration of French and Francophone fictions and theoretical works. We will study notions such as unreason, passion, delirium, alienation, and maternal psychosis. Cross-list: FREN 408.
MDHM 420 - MEDICAL HUMANITIES SPANISH PRACTICUM ABROAD
Short Title: MED HUMANITIES PRACTICUM SPAIN
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Internship/Practicum
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Prerequisite(s): MDHM 201
Corequisite: SPAN 324
Description: This highly individualized course focuses on developing students' abilities through interaction and active participation in a health project research developed with a community partner in an organization in Pamplona, Spain. Partners may vary by semester. Possible partners include ASPACE, Paris 365, Red Cross, Food Bank of Pamploma, and others. Students learn about these organizations, work with them, and develop an exploratory project in medical humanities that they will present to the public in a workshop, flier, web-based presentation, or other format. This course counts towards the practicum requirement for the MDHM minor and may count towards completion of other programs of study. Instructor Permission Required. Recommended Prerequisite(s): An approved MDHM elective.
MDHM 421 - MEDICAL HUMANITIES CHINESE PRACTICUM ABROAD
Short Title: MED HUMANITIES PRACTICUM TAIWA
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Intensive Learning Experience
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: This highly individualized course focuses on developing students' abilities through interaction and active participation in a health project developed with a community partner in an organization in Taipei, Taiwan. Partners may vary by semester but may include Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Traditional Chinese Medicine clinics, and others. Students learn about these organizations, work with them, and develop an exploratory project in medical humanities that they will share with the public in a workshop, community event, web-based presentation, or other format. This course counts towards the practicum requirement for the MDHM minor and may count towards completion of other programs of study. Instructor Permission Required. Instructor Permission Required. Recommended Prerequisite(s): MDHM 201 and CHIN 319 Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 430 - HEALTH, HUMANISM AND SOCIETY SCHOLARS MEDICAL HUMANITIES PRACTICUM (ONE SEMESTER)
Short Title: HHASS 1-SEM MED HUM PRACTICUM
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Internship/Practicum
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Prerequisite(s): MDHM 201
Description: This research-based course is conducted in partnership with health institutions in Houston. Qualified and advanced students apply for or develop projects in specific research areas and work 6-8 hours per week on site with health professionals, archivists, and center directors. Students follow curriculum under guidance of Rice faculty and meet regularly to discuss research and develop skills for careers after graduation. Must have completed MDHM 201 and at least 9 credit hours in a humanities discipline for course eligibility. Instructor Permission Required. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for MDHM 430 if student has credit for HURC 430. Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 435 - TOPICS IN APPLIED MEDICAL HUMANITIES RESEARCH
Short Title: APPLIED MEDICAL HUMANITIES RES
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Internship/Practicum
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Prerequisite(s): MDHM 201
Description: In this practicum, students work as a team to design humanities-based solutions or create resources for a local organization related to health. Under the guidance of the faculty instructor, students will co-create a research plan, including a timeline, benchmark goals, a possible budget, and the division of tasks. Students will also complete common readings and visit the partner institution and relevant local sites as a group to gain insights into the broader context of the topic they will be researching. A mentor or team from the partner site will meet with the class periodically throughout the semester to answer questions, provide feedback, and connect students with relevant resources. By the end of the semester, the team will complete a project or resource for the organization and present their work to a relevant audience. Partners and projects vary by semester. This course counts towards the elective requirements of the MDHM minor. Recommended Prerequisite(s): Two additional Humanities courses OR two additional MDHM elective courses. Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 436 - ENGAGED LEARNING AND RESEARCH IN MEDICAL HUMANITIES
Short Title: MDHM SUMMER PRACTICUM
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Internship/Practicum
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Prerequisite(s): MDHM 201
Description: This practicum course is conducted in partnership with health institutions in Houston. Qualified and advanced students may propose summer projects in conjunction with a health organization. Students may continue research work that they began for a medical humanities practicum, pursue a new research project under the mentorship of a health professional or a professional who works in a health-related organization, or develop a research project that adds a medical humanities perspective to a health-related opportunity. Students meet regularly with Rice faculty to discuss research and develop skills for careers after graduation and work an average of 6-8 hours per week with health or health-related professionals. Students complete reflective assignments, prepare a presentation, and develop a public-facing research project. Must have completed MDHM 201 and at least 9 credit hours in a humanities discipline for course eligibility. Instructor Permission Required. Instructor Permission Required. Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 477 - SPECIAL TOPICS
Short Title: SPECIAL TOPICS
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory, Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Seminar
Credit Hours: 1-4
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: Topics and credit hours may vary each semester. Contact department for current semester's topic(s). Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 525 - TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICAL HUMANITIES- FALL
Short Title: TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICAL HUMA
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 1.5-3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
Course Level: Graduate
Description: Graduate-level introduction to a range of methodological and theoretical approaches to medical humanities research on technology, as well as to important current debates about the various disciplinary approaches to analyzing and interpreting the history, development, application, and ethics of technologies in medicine. Repeatable for Credit.
MDHM 526 - TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICAL HUMANITIES- SPRING
Short Title: TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICAL HUMA
Department: Medical Humanities
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 1.5
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
Course Level: Graduate
Description: Graduate-level introduction to a range of methodological and theoretical approaches to medical humanities research on technology, as well as to important current debates about the various disciplinary approaches to analyzing and interpreting the history, development, application, and ethics of technologies in medicine. Repeatable for Credit.