Program Overview

Introduction to Medicine, Health, and Society

Medicine, Health, and Society (MHS) is an innovative and interdisciplinary field of study that transcends the traditional biomedical approach to understanding health and illness. The major draws on courses in the medical sciences, humanities, and social sciences.

Curriculum

Through work in and out of the classroom, MHS students learn to think critically about complex social issues that impact health and to develop effective strategies for targeting health care crises. The curriculum trains students to meet emerging challenges in our world, in our health care system, and in medical education.

Concentration Areas

MHS majors craft a plan of study that includes a foundations class, electives aligned with their particular interests, and an area of concentration. Concentration areas include:

• Health in global context: health across national and cultural contexts, global health and social medicine, history and politics of global health inequalities, health effects of global change and crisis.
• Health policy and economics: economic, legal, and political dimensions of health.
• Health behaviors and health sciences: social foundations of health through the lens of the health professions.
• Inequality, intersectionality, and health justice: how diverse structures of inequality intersect and shape health, health and movements for social justice, health in the context of race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, and citizenship.
• Health in the arts and humanities: critical perspectives on health discourse, philosophy and ethics of health, literature and the arts on practices of medicine, health and healing.
• Specialized health studies: a self-designed set of four courses (12 credit hours) that form a coherent program of study related to critical health studies; subject to approval by the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Courses

Students choose from courses in MHS and other departments, including neuroscience, biological sciences, psychology, sociology, anthropology, climate and environmental studies, gender and sexuality studies, political science, history, philosophy, and economics. Recent MHS courses include:

• Foundations of Medicine, Health & Society
• Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
• Guns in America
• Global Health Crises
• U.S. Health Policy
• LGBT Health Disparities
• Mental Health Policy
• Psychiatry, Culture, and Globalization
• Applied AI for the Health Sciences
• Medicine and Literature
• War and the Body
• Death and Dying in America
• Examining Care and Caregiving
• Families in Turbulent Times
• American Medicine and the World
• Chinese Society and Medicine
• Medicine, Technology and Society
• Health Politics of Data, Surveillance & Security
• and the Politics of AI.

Special Opportunities

MHS students are active members of Vanderbilt's numerous health-related service organizations and pre-health professional societies. Students may earn academic credit for internships and service-learning projects, which combine practical training with academic research. Under faculty supervision, students gain experience in a broad range of public and private health-related agencies.

Honors Program

The Honors program offers qualified majors the opportunity to conduct individual research projects in collaboration with faculty members. This research culminates in the writing and presentation of a senior thesis. A selection of Honors theses from recent years include:

• Investigating Mental Health Outcomes for Informal Caregivers Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Undergraduate Student Interaction with On- and Off-Campus Mental Health and Wellbeing Resources: Resource Perception, Socioeconomic Status, and Experience with Mental Illness
• Imaging the Body, Losing the Self: Tracing the Paradox of (In)Visibility of Sweden's Apathetic Children within National Imaginaries
• Racialization of Sickle Cell Disease: Implications on Sickle Cell Disease Treatment in Nashville
• Examining the Role of Peer Substance Use Norms on Substance Use Among Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents: Evidence from a Population-Based, Statewide Study
• Exploring the Psychological and Social Underpinnings of Opioid Use Disorder and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome
• Crippling Campus Cultures: Disability Cultural Centers, Identity Formation, and Institutional Memory
• Implementation of First Rheumatic Heart Disease Registry in Rwanda
• Recontextualization and Imagination: The Public Health Professional and the U.S. Health Care System

4+1 B.A./M.A. Program

The Department of Medicine, Health, and Society offers a 4+1 B.A. to M.A. program that allows students to earn both degrees in just five yearsor even less. Through the M.A. program's interdisciplinary curriculum, students learn from leading faculty in fields such as health policy, mental health, global health, and the social determinants of health. The program offers a customizable path, allowing students to choose electives from across the university's top-ranked schools.

Faculty

MHS has 24 primary faculty from a range of social science, humanities, and professional fields who excel in scholarship and teaching. In 2024, MHS faculty produced over 100 peer-reviewed publications and received prestigious awards for research, undergraduate teaching, and mentorship. The department also features affiliated faculty in departments and programs across the College of Arts and Science, Peabody College, School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and the Law School, as well as the Institute for Global Health, the Department of Health Policy, and the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society.

Career Opportunities

The Medicine, Health, and Society major prepares students for professional training in medicine, nursing, law, public health, management, and other areas, and for graduate study in a variety of disciplines. According to a survey of our graduating seniors, approximately one-third go to medical school and another one-third attend public health, nursing, or other graduate schools. Other students accept jobs in the health care industry, government, or nonprofit sectors. In recent years, MHS graduates have found positions with organizations including the American Heart Association, the National Institutes of Health, Black Rock, Boston Children's Hospital, Chandler Chicco Companies, RAND Corporation, Department of Veterans Affairs, Compass Professional Services, Deloitte Consulting, Epic Systems Corporation, Health Talents International, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Huron Consulting Group, Parallon Business Solutions, Teach for America, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.