Academic Life

Medicine and Society Program

Medicine and Society Program

Science, technology, and medicine are among the most significant and influential forms of knowledge and practice in modern society. Understanding how these activities have influenced society, and how society in turn has shaped their development, is thus of considerable interest. The Medicine and Society Program at the University of Houston is an interdisciplinary venture aimed at bringing together health-care and health-studies specialists from across the city to offer college classes and public events on a wide variety of medical, technology and health related issues in order to bring this “great conversation” to the University of Houston.

Houston is a city in which health care is an industry and social practice of immense importance, historically, economically, and culturally. The Texas Medical Center is the largest in the world and home to two medical schools, two schools of nursing, and a score of programs in the allied health sciences, as well more than a dozen major hospitals, clinics, research laboratories, and other medical facilities. The richness of the medical heritage of this city, combined with the wide range of outstanding medical expertise we are able to draw upon, have gotten this new program off to a flying start.

The Medicine and Society program offers a course entitled "Readings in Medicine and Society" that may be taken as a stand alone class or as part of the new Minor in Medicine and Society. Both the "Readings" class and the Minor are open to all undergraduates at the University of Houston (that is, students do not need to be members of The Honors College to enroll in classes offered as part of the Medicine and Society Program).

Director: William Monroe

Associate Director: W. Andrew Achenbaum

Coordinator: Helen Valier