Medical Humanities (MA / Postgraduate Diploma / Postgraduate Certificate) - 2012/2013 entry

What is ‘the art of medicine’ and how can it improve patient care? This new programme allows you to reflect on and develop your daily clinical practice, through a deeper understanding of the humanities – art, literature, music, myth and culture.

Taught by Birkbeck faculty and KSS Deanery’s senior educational and clinical staff, the programme draws together the emergent fields of medical humanities and intercultural medicine, to explore and develop the lived experience of clinicians in the everyday complexities of real-life clinical settings as they interact with patients and cultures. You will encounter the rich insights of the humanities about culture, the body and what it means to be human, and will find ways to integrate these with medical science, to develop a richer understanding of your clinical practice. As part of this engagement, you will have the opportunity to explore non-Western models of medical practice, and to consider how far they complement biomedicine, from the viewpoints of cultures, patients, and practitioners. You will acquire and refine skills in verbal and written communication, as well as in research and critical analysis.

The unique link between Birkbeck and KSS Deanery means that this programme combines world-class research-led humanities teaching with an established understanding of the real-life experience of clinical practice and patient care. 

• Learn how the humanities disciplines conceive of key aspects of human existence, the body and culture.
• Find new ways to reflect upon and develop your clinical practice, and enhance patient care.
• Learn about indigenous and non-Western medical traditions.
• Find out what our students say about our courses.

Term 1
Core Module 1: Perspectives, Practices and Patients: introduces you to the mythic roots of medical practice, and then to twentieth-century critical theoretical formulations of the body, space, language and discourse. The cohering theme is that of ‘third space’ – its aim is to equip you with a conceptual framework within which to examine the clinical encounter. The module also incorporates skills and writing sessions, in order to teach medical practitioners how to undertake critical reading and writing.

Term 2 
Take your first option module, chosen from the designated group of medical humanities options:

• A Confusion of Tongues: Illness, Language, Writing
• Language Matters
• A Victorian Hangover: Nineteenth-Century Models of Addiction
• Medicine and Visual Culture
• Disciplining Sex; Sexuality, Society and Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture.

Term 3
Psycho-Social Research – Working Below the Surface: introduces you to ideas about self-reflective practice as clinicians. It is preparation for your summer task which is to ‘negotiate entry’ into a placement within another medical tradition, such as British Herbalism, Acupuncture or TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). A six-week observation of ‘alternative’ medical practice and tradition forms a fundamental part of the structure of Core Module 2 in Year 2.

Term 1
Core Module 2: Third Spaces – Working in Your Own and Other Cultures: introduces you to critical theoretical formulations of ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’, via post-colonial and feminist theory. You then undertake research placements in ‘alternative’ medical settings. Throughout the course, you will attend a weekly Experiential Group, which provides the opportunity for you to reflect on the challenges involved in engaging with other medical practices, as well as reflecting upon the way the experience might inflect your own clinical practice.

Term 2
Take your second option module, which you can choose from the wide range of courses on offer within the School of Arts, the School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy, and the School of Law.

Term 3
Attend a course on research skills and then undertake the 15,000-word dissertation, for submission at the end of September.

In addition to its own library, Birkbeck’s location in Bloomsbury offers excellent access to all the major research libraries in London, including Senate House Library, the British Library and the Wellcome Collection.

Find out more about our range of world-class research resources.