Health Care and Human Connections

Faculty

ERIC MEYER, PH.D.
CHARLOTTE JONES, PH.D.

Overview

This social science and humanities-based minor complements and enhances the coursework required by the science majors. While clinical knowledge and mastery of therapeutic procedures are invaluable for professionals in the medical field, capacities for interpersonal communication, relationship building, cultural sensitivity, systems-level critical thinking, and historical consciousness are also essential for day-to-day work in health care settings. This minor will expose students to an expansive, empathic, and holistic perspective on contemporary health care, all the way from interpersonal clinical encounters to structural and policy concerns. Providing theoretical foundations and practical skills, the curriculum will guide students in examining the “big picture” of present-day health care as well as finely grained moments of clinical interaction.

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the Health Care and Human Connection minor, graduates will:

Embody the values of a Mission-centered Carroll education in the field of health care

• By developing the capacity to articulate their own ethical positions around health care-specific questions and engage in sensitive conversation with persons whose positions differ from their own.
• By understanding and applying the ethical principles that guide health care practitioners.
• By explicitly integrating religious and philosophical perspectives into their understanding of health care, students will gain frameworks for analyzing and evaluating complex questions in health care at the level of foundational assumptions and basic principles, in addition to institutional and professional codes of conduct.
• By examining and articulating their own deep motivations for entering service in health care, graduates will be equipped for long-term sustainable work in a challenging field where burnout is common.

Expand their capacity for a holistic approach to human relationships in health care.

• By implementing a variety of communication strategies that facilitate openness and trust across cultural and interpersonal barriers.
• Through experience analyzing and facilitating the resolution of interpersonal disagreement around weighty decisions in health care.
• By understanding and comparing formative social and cultural influences that persons (both patients and professionals) bring into health care contexts as they bear upon clinical relationships.
• By analyzing and comparing diverse personal and cultural perspectives on death and dying, the beginning of human life, and the nature and purpose of human life.

Be equipped for creative and empathetic leadership in health care

• By understanding clinical encounters within the context of policy/political issues and cultural/social issues.