Bioethics and Medical Humanities (UM-BMH)

The Ethics and Art of Healthcare Delivery

“Biology helped me pass my exams, including the all-important MCAT. But bioethics courses, with the heavy emphasis placed on the medical humanities as essential to successful clinical practice, continues to help me know what it means to be with the sick and suffering every day.”
– John-Marc Austin, M.D., Biology ‘17

Understand the Importance of the Clinician-Patient Relationship

The Bioethics and Medical Humanities minor provides students with a greater understanding of the art of medicine, the importance of the clinician-patient relationship, the spiritual and emotional dimensions of disease, and the human experience of illness.

The study of bioethics concerns the moral implications of biological and medical procedures, technologies, and treatments. It focuses on ways in which research is applied to clinical practice and public policy. Bioethics promotes dialogue between science, biotechnology, medicine, nursing, politics, law, philosophy and religion. By extension, bioethics now considers important questions related to the moral status of animals and the environment.

Medical humanities concerns what matters most in medical practice–an awareness and appreciation for the “whole person” in healthcare delivery.

Combining bioethics studies with medical humanities–an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of the humanities, social sciences, and the arts, and their application to medical education and practice–provides an even broader perspective for students planning careers in medicine, nursing, healthcare policy, health law, psychology, public and/or global health, social work, patient advocacy, health journalism, bioethics, or healthcare management.

Program Background

The Undergraduate Minor in Bioethics and Medical Humanities (UM-BMH) degree is a rigorous and enriching academic program offering courses in person, online, or in combination. The UM-BMH helps pre-health students improve skills needed in clinical practice, theoretical research, and academic teaching.

Who Should Enroll?

Rapid advances in modern medicine mean a greater need for leaders in the field who can think critically about emerging issues involving the treatment of patients. The UM-BMH program is geared toward students from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds, both clinical and non-clinical, who are seeking to learn about bioethics and medical humanities and their application to the practice of healthcare.

Program Completion Requirements

In order to complete the minor:
● Students must maintain a 3.0 GPA or better in the program.
● Students must complete 18 credits of coursework prior to graduation.
● All courses must be taken through Elms College unless special provisions are made with the program director.
● Students cannot withdraw from courses unless they are granted a leave of absence by the program director.

Bridge and Credit Transfer Options

Students enrolled in the Undergraduate Minor in Bioethics and Medical Humanities (UM-BMH) and prospective MA-BMH students with prior graduate coursework in BMH or a BMH-adjacent field are eligible to transfer credits into the MA-BMH program.

Full-time UM-BMH students who complete program requirements at the undergraduate level are eligible to transfer up to six credits into the MA-BMH program with the permission of the program director.

Full-time UM-BMH students are also able to complete program requirements at the graduate level free of additional charge. Up to six credits of courses taken at the graduate level are eligible to be transferred into the MA-BMH program.

Prospective MA-BMH students with prior graduate coursework in BMH or a BMH-adjacent
field may transfer up to nine (and, in special circumstances, twelve) credits into the MA-BMH
program with the permission of the program director.

Concentration Option

UM-BMH students may choose to concentrate in Catholic Bioethics and Medical Humanities by enrolling in at least three of the following courses and writing the corresponding research essay for each course on a topic specifically related to Catholic Bioethics and Medical Humanities.
● BMH 3011/5011: Philosophy of Death and Dying
● BMH 3160/5160: Bioethics, Disability, and Human Rights
● BMH 3200/5200: Comparative Religious Bioethics
● BMH 3210/5210: Philosophy of Pain and Suffering
● BMH 3250/5250: Genetic and Reproductive Ethics
● BMH 3320/5320: Religion and Medicine
● BMH 3325/5325: Neonatal and Pediatric Bioethics
● BMH 3330/5330: Critical Care and End-of-Life Ethics
● REL 3400/5400: Spirituality in Healthcare
● REL 3504/5504: Life and Death Decisions in Catholic Thought

Clinical and Organizational Rotations in Ethics (CORE) Program

UM-BMH students with healthcare experience and a cumulative GPA of 3.85 or higher may be granted permission by the program director to enroll in the Clinical and Organizational Rotations in Ethics (CORE) program offered by the Office of Clinical and Organizational Ethics at Baystate Health/UMass Chan Medical School – Baystate (BH/UMCMS-B), which is less than five minutes from the Elms College campus.

The CORE program provides students with an experience-based internship to learn the requisite scholarly and professional skills necessary to navigate complex healthcare ethics consultations in a supervised, guided manner.

CORE interns focus on integrating clinical, organizational, and professional ethics across a large academic healthcare system. The program also provides students with a robust and substantive apprenticeship to undertake clinical and organizational ethics consultations, including active participation in the pre-consultation phase.

CORE interns are intensely supervised at BH/UMCMS-B. Duties of CORE interns include, but are not limited to, professional ethics education for healthcare personnel, clinical and organizational ethics research, policy review and/or development on ethical issues, and prospective and retrospective case consultation.

Each 3-credit CORE internship requires approximately 150 hours of work in the Office of Clinical and Organizational Ethics at BH/UMCMS-B.

Typically, CORE internships may be initiated after completion of 15 credit hours of coursework. The CORE program adopts an integrated ethics approach, as developed by the Veterans Health Administration, to implement the Core Competencies for Clinical Ethics Consultation of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

Program Completion Outcomes

Students who complete the UM-BMH program will be eligible to:
● Serve as an affiliate member of a Healthcare Ethics Consultation Service.
● Apply to postgraduate programs in bioethics and medical humanities, including, but not limited to, clinical bioethics internships, residencies, fellowships, and advanced training.
● Apply to graduate programs in bioethics and medical humanities, biomedical sciences, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, health law, and health policy, among others.
● Apply to advanced professional programs in healthcare, including, but not limited to, medicine, veterinary, dental, physician assistant, chiropractic, physical therapy, optometry, podiatry, anesthesiology assistant, cardiovascular perfusion, and pharmacy, among others.

Tuition Discount

Elms College alumni and employees of several regional healthcare institutions are eligible for a significant tuition discount.

Textbook Provision

All required reading for every course offered by the program director in the UM-BMH program is provided free of charge, in PDF format.

Undergraduate Assistantships

UM-BMH students with healthcare experience and a cumulative GPA of 3.85 or higher may apply for an undergraduate assistantship. Students who are awarded an undergraduate assistantship are eligible for research opportunities under the supervision of the program director that can, and often do, result in opportunities to co-publish in the peer-reviewed literature and submit scholarship for presentation at regional, national, and international academic conferences.

Career Opportunities

Career opportunities for UM-BMH graduates can be located in numerous places online, including the job boards of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, Hastings Center, and Bioethics Today.

Gainful Employment Disclosure