Celebrating Our Graduating
Medical Humanities Students
In this newsletter, we highlight some of the graduating Medical Humanities students who embody the spirit of academic excellence that we seek to cultivate. The wide variety of career paths pursued by these students is not coincidental; our program prides itself on serving as a gateway to a plethora of vocations by cultivating life-long learners with diverse backgrounds, interests, and skillsets. Though their journeys may seem distinct, what underpins the character of all of these students is a deep seated and unwavering commitment to transforming their field to address the real challenges faced by real people. At Rice, we are dedicated to ensuring that our students receive a comprehensive education in all aspects of patient care. To this end, the Medical Humanities program has developed courses, internships, and research experiences to facilitate the development of the next generation of leaders in the medical field that seeks to heal, not just treat.
That distinction isn’t self-evident – it is something we explore with our students both in and out of the classroom. Since launching in 2016, the Medical Humanities minor has seen incredible support from across our campus. With faculty trained in Anthropology, Asian Studies, English, History, Health Sciences, Philosophy, Religion, Sociology, or Spanish, our students have committed to questioning the known and exploring the unknown. But the students who leave our classrooms today didn’t just keep their heads in textbooks during their Rice tenure. Instead, they leapt forward into the real world to navigate the challenges that are yet unpublished and to meet the patients whose hardships are yet undocumented. Whether it be through our TMC partnerships with premier institutions like UTHealth or Texas Children’s Hospital, or through the Medical Humanities Research Institute, our students are graduating into a world that they have already begun exploring.
We have the utmost confidence that our students leave our program as more learned individuals who will enrich the lives of the doctors, patients, friends, and families around them. As they move into this next phase of their life, they do so whilst proudly pledging to “Do No Harm,” and by completing the Medical Humanities Minor at Rice, our students have a better understanding of what exactly that means.