Studying the humanities has been shown to foster medical students who have more compassion and empathy. As such, it’s a positive development that undergraduate programs in “health humanities” have increased exponentially in the last 20 years. Majors which combine science with the humanities are increasingly popular.  For example, at Vanderbilt the major in Medicine, Health, and Society is now the second most popular field of study, with over 500 students. Areas of inquiry in the major include racial and ethnic health disparities, social justice, literature, neuroscience, biology, psychology, sociology, and history, among other fields. Baylor was the first institution to offer an undergraduate medical humanities major and others soon followed. There are currently 17 colleges or universities which offer a major or concentration in medical humanities; many more schools offer a minor. The list of schools offering a major or concentration is as follows:

Baylor

Beloit

Benedictine

Columbia

DePaul

Emory

Florida Atlantic

Harvard

Hiram

Indiana

Johns Hopkins

Misericordia

Northwestern

Southern Methodist

Stanford

University of Alabama

University of Pennsylvania

University of Richmond

University of Texas at San Antonio

Vanderbilt

–Liza Thompson, Expert Medical School Admissions Consulting