Dive Summary:
- Vanderbilt University's Center for Medicine, Health and Society is announcing the hiring of its first five core faculty members since evolving last year from an interdepartmental program of teaching and research that began in 2006.
- The program, which currently has around 335 students, focuses on how medical health, policy and practice intersect with cultural, social, economic and political forces.
- The center's director, Dr. Jonathan M. Metzel--a psychiatrist and cultural studies Ph. D., estimates that some 20 percent of Vanderbilt medical students take courses listed by the center, which have previously been coordinated and taught by around 50 Vanderbilt faculty members in subjects ranging from literature to economics to obstetrics.
From the article:
While studying for his medical degree at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Jonathan M. Metzl also completed bachelor's degrees in biology and English literature. Understandably, he recalls, "pretty much everyone said, 'What the hell are you doing?'" Undaunted by such questions, during his medical residency at Stanford University he earned a master's degree in literature. While establishing a practice in psychiatry, he earned a doctorate in cultural studies from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. That breadth of study prepared him to become, last year, the first director of Vanderbilt University's Center for Medicine, Health, and Society. To cope with swelling interest, the center has recently hired its first five core faculty members. ...