What to Expect
In our program, you’ll encounter nine months of some of the most intense, provocative and challenging learning you’ve ever experienced. You will study with leading scholars across multiple disciplines and gain powerful insights about the ethical, cultural, and social issues surrounding the delivery of healthcare.
You’ll also gain practical experience through clinical placements and be able to select electives that align with your areas of greatest interest. A faculty advisor will offer guidance and perspective about your academic choices—as well as future professional goals.
Our program also offers three concentration options:
- Medicine, Society, and Culture
- Research Ethics
- Health Policy
In the Medicine, Society and Culture concentration, you’ll explore the many ways we define health and illness—and, in turn, how they influence our experiences of both. Elective options span humanities, social sciences, and law and other disciplines.
The Research Ethics concentration, meanwhile, gives you a thorough grounding in the complex realms of medical studies—including clinical trials—and the legal, regulatory and policy questions involved. Topics include levels and nature of oversight, challenges in ensuring truly informed consent, and identification and enforcement of professional misconduct. As part of the Research Ethics Practicum, you'll be embedded within a research group at Case Western Reserve or at an area medical institution.
The Health Policy concentration will prepare you to understand the various mechanisms and processes that form public and social policies and how policy agendas are initiated and transformed by various stakeholders. You will have the opportunity to apply your knowledge as you examine policies that have been developed in various domains, such as housing, public health, immigration, and end-of-life care, to name a few.
