Uniting the Pre-Health Humanities with the Introductory Composition Course

The Journal of Medical Humanities
Amy Rubens

Abstract

Drawing on my experiences at a teaching-focused university, I show how locating the health humanities in first-year or introductory composition courses improves learning and offers an economical, flexible, and far-reaching approach to bringing a health humanities education to all baccalaureate-level learners, regardless of whether they aspire to careers in the health professions. In terms of improving learning, health humanities composition courses support the disciplinary aims of both fields. Accessible, relevant issues in the health humanities, such as interventions in health debates or representations of illness and healthcare settings, nourish the cognitive and social conditions needed to develop college-level writing skills. The health humanities' emphases on interdisciplinarity and suspending judgment also inform students' writing abilities. Composition trains students to write rhetorically by considering purpose, context, genre, mode, and other factors when addressing an audience. This approach to writing helps pre-health humanists communicate intentionally and compassionately about health topics as well as the larger issues they call into question. Because students enroll in health humanities composition courses at an e...Continue Reading

References

Jan 6, 2000·Contemporary Educational Psychology·R M Ryan, E L Deci
Sep 27, 2006·The Journal of Medical Humanities·Johanna ShapiroAudrey Shafer
Sep 19, 2009·The Journal of Medical Humanities·Delese Wear
May 28, 2010·Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges·Catherine Belling
May 28, 2010·Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges·Jakob Ousager, Helle Johannessen
Sep 19, 2015·Medical Education·Alan Bleakley

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Citations

Feb 1, 2020·Teaching and Learning in Medicine·Yangzi LiuMargaret B Mitchell

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