/Renaissance School of Medicine
Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care & Bioethics

Medicine in Contemporary Society (MCS) Core Curriculum

Areas of Focus

It is through the humanities that health professionals are sensitized to the patient as a person coping with illness against the background of a healthcare system that can often be de-humanizing. It is through the writing of novels, short stories and poems that professionals and those coping with illness can express their insights and experiences. MCS gives students an opportunity to expand their knowledge of ethical, social, cultural, and humanistic issues in medicine in a manner reflective of their own career choices and particular interests. MCS focuses on mastery of knowledge and attitudes related especially to the following core competencies: professionalism and ethics, communication, self-awareness, social context of medical care, and health care systems.

The art of healing requires compassion and emotional intelligence on the part of clinicians, yet many patients and their families do not experience care in this basic sense. As the connection between healing and emotions becomes better understood scientifically, we need to renew a commitment to compassionate care that is grounded in leading edge research, scholarship, and educational efforts.

Bioethics is the systematic study of the moral dimensions – including moral vision, decisions, conduct, and policies – of the life sciences and health care, employing a variety of ethical methodologies in an interdisciplinary setting. From the beginning to the end of life, biotechnologies and healthcare raise every conceivable question about human dignity and the very future of human nature itself.

Core Units Offered

Topic: Medicine as a Profession
Faculty: Dr. Michael Vetrano & Dr. Maria Basile

Topic: What is the Illness experience?
Faculty: Dr. Michael Vetrano & Dr. Maria Basile

Topic: Professional Identity Formation and the Beneficiaries of Compassionate Care
Faculty: Dr. Stephen Post

Topic: Structure/Limits/Violations in Patient Autonomy
Faculty: Dr. Michael Vetrano

Topic: Health Disparity and the Social Determinants of Health
Faculty: Dr. Phyllis Migdal

Topic: Pain/Ethics/Substance Abuse
Faculty: Dr. Kevin Zacharoff

Topic: Facing Mortality
Faculty: Dr. Michael Vetrano

Topic: The Ethics of Gender and Identity- caring for LGBTQ+ persons
Faculty: Dr. Allison Eliscu

Topic: Directives and Decision
Faculty: Dr. Michael Vetrano

Topic: Navigating Law, Ethics, and Personal Conscience
Faculty: Caitlyn Tabor, JD

Topic: Narrative Medicine
Faculty: Dr. Maria Basile

Topic: Professional Duties
Faculty: Dr. Maria Basile and Caitlyn Tabor, JD

Topic: Structural Racism and Health Care
Faculty: Dr. Cordia Beverley

Topic: Dementia and Society
Faculty: Dr. Stephen Post

Topic: Medical Finance
Faculty: Dr. William Wertheim

Topic: Interface of AI and Medical Practice
Faculty: Dr. Rachel Wong