Intercalated BSc in Medical Humanities
The intercalated programme is an opportunity for BOTH MBChB and BDS students to develop their medical and professional expertise through a sustained encounter with the understanding of medical and health related topics developed within the traditions of the arts and social sciences.
Former students have praised the course for the following reasons:
- an opportunity to experience a different style of learning
- being able to personally select a range of different courses according to your interests
- the enthusiasm and support of the teaching staff, drawn from many different Subject areas
- giving students the confidence and ability to constructively criticize medicine "from the outside"
- being beneficial in revealing the humanity and frailty of both patients and doctors
The BSc (MedSci)/(DentSci) Honours in Medical Humanities programme consists of the first three years of the MBChB programme, or the first four years of the BDS programme, followed by one full-time intercalating year in Medical Humanities. Admission to the programme is at the discretion of the College of Arts & Humanities. Students are strongly advised to have taken relevant SSCs in order to have acquired some experience of the arts, humanities, and/or social sciences. Students wishing to intercalate in the medical humanities are advised to contact the Programme Convener as early as possible in their second semester. This will allow an opportunity to discuss the suitability of the programme, and the availability of any desired courses.
The current programme convener is Dr Gavin Miller.
External applicants may apply to entry for either programme; interested parties should contact the Programme Convener in the first instance.
Students will have the opportunity to learn from a diverse range of subjects within the Colleges of Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences in order to construct a package of Honours courses suitable to their own particular needs and interests. A mandatory medical humanities dissertation gives the opportunity for an extended investigation of a medical or health related topic.
The intercalating year consists of compulsory and elective elements TO A TOTAL OF 120 CREDITS.
Compulsory (50 OR 60 credits):
An Introduction to Medical and Health Humanities (20 credits)
Medical Humanities Dissertation (30 OR 40 credits)
Elective (70 OR 60 credits):
Elective courses to a minimum of 70 OR 60 credits from medical and/or health related courses in the Colleges of Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences.
The programme convenor, in consultation with the relevant contributing schools, will have final authority over whether a student’s proposed combination of compulsory and elective elements is appropriate for the intercalating year. Permission will not be withheld unreasonably, but the proposed diet of courses will be inspected with a particular view to their practicability and timetabling. For further information on specific courses, including the Medical Humanities Dissertation, please consult the most recent University course catalogue.
The list of elective courses in academic session 25-26 is given below. The availability of any particular course from the list below cannot be guaranteed; course provision varies from year to year because of a variety of factors, including curricular development and staff availability. The list of elective courses for academic session 26-27 will be finalised in summer 2026.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS
ENGLANG4050 Discourse in Professional Contexts
ENGLISH LITERATURE
ENGLIT4134 Futures: Unbundling the Now
ENGLIT4085 Literary Theory
ENGLIT4096 Literature and Medicine
ENGLIT4106 Science Fiction 1945-Present
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY
ESH4076 Medicine and the State in Modern Britain
ESH4091 Motherhood and Maternity in 20th-Century Britain
FILM AND TV
FTV4120 Media and Mental Health
GEOGRAPHY
GEOG4089 Historical Geographies of Care, Conflict and Confinement
GEOG4113 Population Geographies A: Past & Present
GEOG4114 Population Geographies B: Spaces, Sex, & Death
HISTORY
HIST4298 American Freedom: Civil Rights Movements in the 20th Century
HIST4089 Oral History: Theory and Methods
HIST4016 Patriarchy, Sex and Gender in Early Modern Europe
HIST4204 Punishment, Internment and Containment: The History and Archaeology of Prisons and Camps
HIST4243 Race and Slavery in the Eighteenth Century British Atlantic World
MUSIC
MUSIC4101 Music in History, Culture and Society 1
PHILOSOPHY
PHIL4004 Contemporary Ethics
PHIL4069 Dreams
PHIL4061 Gender and Race
PHIL4060 Pain and Pleasure
PHIL4030 Philosophy of Mind
PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCH4014 Autism 4H
PSYCH4018 Cognitive Neuroscience: Insights into Brain Plasticity 4H
PSYCH4082 Health Neuroscience 4H
PSYCH4006 Human Development 3H
PSYCH4039 Individual Differences 3H
PSYCH4031 Neuropsychological Dissociations 4H
PSYCH4008 Perception and Visual Cognition 4H
PSYCH4065 Physiological Psychology 3H
PSYCH4034 Psychology and Biology of Mental Health Conditions 4H
PSYCH4040 Sleep and Circadian Timing 4H
SOCIOLOGY
SOCIO4130 Disabling Worlds: Exploring Disability in the Global North & South
SOCIO4127 Ways of Living: Studying Different Worlds
THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES
TRS4095 Issues in Contemporary Catholicism