Faculty of Arts & Humanities | MA Medical Humanities (Online)

MA Medical Humanities (Online) at Durham University

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This online MA in Medical Humanities adopts the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences to gain a better understanding of the human experience as it relates to health and illness.

This online MA in Medical Humanities is an exciting and challenging course that applies the knowledge and insight of the humanities and social sciences to study and understand better what is meant by health and illness outside of a medical context and, in particular, to analyse how our thoughts and physical experiences become recognised as symptoms.

The MA is suitable if you have an undergraduate qualification in an area such as Anthropology; English; Geography; Law; Modern Languages & Cultures; Philosophy; Sociology and related disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. You may also benefit if you have a background in health and social care and are looking to bring humanities and social sciences perspectives to bear in your professional practice.

Learning from leading scholars in the subject, you will be joining an interdisciplinary MA led by the University’s Institute for Medical Humanities and the Faculty of Arts & Humanities. The course blends face-to-face study with online learning to provide a fascinating and comprehensive introduction to the wide range of approaches to health taken by different academic disciplines.

Core modules include Concepts & Frameworks in the Critical Medical Humanities and Reimagining Health Research: Methodologies in the Critical Medical Humanities while optional modules explore Key Philosophical Issues in Science & Medicine and Ethics, Medicine & History. There is also a Critical Medical Humanities dissertation to complete.

Teaching will be through tutorial and seminars and scaffolded assignments where work is broken down into small units with a defined subject focus. We also offer the option of studying the course online as a distance learner.

As a student on this course, you will become a member of the Postgraduate & Early Career Researchers (PGECR) network in Medical Humanities, where you will benefit from regular seminars, conferences and social events.

There is an array of career options possible that include professions in national, international and local government agencies, sustainability management, policy research, corporate responsibility and sustainability, environmental journalism and writing, environmental tourism, environmentally-oriented NGOs and charities and conservation work. The MA in Environmental Humanities also offers enhanced suitability for business graduate programmes in Sustainability.

Employers often value Masters graduates in arts and humanities for their understanding and ability to communicate, flexibility, as well as their analytical and synthetic competence.

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