3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Health care can be expensive for those who receive it and those who provide it. In the United States, patients go into debt while doctors suffer from burnout and nurses rush through understaffed wards. This freshman seminar brings together perspectives from history, the social sciences, and literature to put a human face on the American health care debate. Alongside policy and research, we read poetry, memoirs, graphic novels, and essays. Major texts include Anne Boyer on breast cancer, Esmé Weijun Wang on mental illness, and Damon Tweedy on racial bias. We’ll examine past and present conflicts over the government's role in healthcare access, as well as alternative models of care deployed by people in marginalized groups. Understanding individual and group encounters with the medical system will inform our discussions about what changes are needed to support both patients and practitioners.