The Medical Humanities Concentration at Davidson

Davidson's Medical Humanities Program promotes an interdisciplinary understanding of medicine and health care. It enables students to appreciate the strengths and limits of the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities as they seek to explain and to achieve a measure of control over disease, illness and suffering. It helps students to grasp the institutional character of health care delivery, especially how legal and political institutions influence the production, distribution and delivery of services.

Medical Humanities courses emphasize the role ethical values play in defining problems as "medical," worth of scientific study, calling for mobilization of social as well as individual resources. The courses help students to develop the analytical skills which permit clear thinking and writing about the complex tradeoffs involved in developing, using and paying for health care.

See the Davidson Journal feature, "Strong Medicine," highlighting the Medical Humanities program at Davidson.

The Davidson/CMC Connection
In 1990, Davidson College and the Carolinas Medical Center joined in a formal agreement "to cooperate and share resources toward the common betterment of health care, the education and training of physicians and improved understanding of the relationship between medicine and society." Under the auspices of this agreement, Davidson students enjoy access to an expanded range of educational opportunities that only a large teaching hospital can provide.