Bioethics and Medical Humanities

The bioethics and medical humanities longitudinal curricular thread focuses on the relationship between the arts, ethics, the practice of empathetic compassionate care, and the socio-medical impact of medical technologies on health outcomes. 

What is the Bioethics and Medical Humanities Thread?

Bioethics is an examination of the ways in which the practice of medicine, medical research, patient rights, science, law, and ethics have informed each other as well as how they are situated with society (via sociological paradigms like symbolic interactionist theory).

Medical Humanities, on the other hand, assesses the relationship between art(the arts), philosophy, and medicine through time. The nexus of these two disciplines provides students with the tools they need to provide empathetic, compassionate, and holistic care to their patients. It also gives them a practical understanding of the legal and/or ethical limits of that care. Thus, they are afforded the opportunity to continue to nurture their humanistic skill set while also anchoring their professional identity formation. 

Carle Illinois College of Medicine Student Art

Bioethics and Medical Humanities Thread Directors

Imanni Sheppard, PhD
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Medical Education Facilitator 
Biomedical and Translational Sciences
Course Director for Social Medicine and the Normative Body 
BIOETHICS AND MEDICAL HUMANITIES THREAD CO-DIRECTOR

Carle Illinois College of Medicine 
Medical Sciences Building, Rm. 238, 
MC-325 506 S. Mathews Avenue Urbana, IL 61801
Ofc.: 217-333-1612 | Email: IKS@Illinois.edu

Mike Aref, MD, PhD
CLINICAL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR 
Clinical Sciences
BIOETHICS AND MEDICAL HUMANITIES THREAD CO-DIRECTOR

maref@illinois.edu