Applied Medical Humanities (Postgraduate Diploma)
Postgraduate
In London
Description
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Type
Postgraduate
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Location
London
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Duration
2 Years
Birkbeck's Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Medical Humanities is designed to help medical practitioners explore and understand their complex, everyday clinical experiences with diverse patients and cultures. Medical humanities is a rich interdisciplinary field of study in which medicine and its practices are examined through the lenses of the humanities disciplines, including art, cultural and critical studies, film, history, law, literature and philosophy.
This practice-based programme utilises the insights and skills of the humanities disciplines to support the development of the professional capabilities, values and behaviours defined by the GMC and NMC and core to clinical practice. Its focus on the integration of medicine and humanities will help you develop a deeper understanding of your clinical practice, locate ways of enhancing patient care and explore strategies for your own self-care. You will acquire new skills in verbal and written communication, research and critical analysis that will expand your existing professional skill-set.
To contextualise Western medicine and the cultural specificity of medicine in Britain, you will undertake a placement within another speciality or medical tradition at the end of your first year. The insights you gain in this placement will allow you to develop a reflexive understanding of your own speciality and the settings in which you deliver healthcare.
This programme is relevant for practitioners across all stages of medical and healthcare careers: in medicine, from foundation years, through speciality training, to consultant level; in nursing, from early career through to specialist and consultant levels. Its intensive delivery makes it possible for full-time clinicians and healthcare professionals, from the UK and overseas, to combine study with clinical commitments.
Facilities
Location
Start date
Start date
About this course
Graduates go in to careers in healthcare, medicine, education and management. Possible professions include healthcare service manager, general practice or hospital doctor, or health promotion specialist. This degree may also be useful in becoming a higher education lecturer, management consultant, or science writer.
We offer a comprehensive Careers Service to help you advance your career, while our in-house, professional recruitment consultancy, Birkbeck Talent, works with London’s top employers to help you gain work experience that fits in with your evening studies.
You must have graduated from a UK medical school or hold an equivalent second-class honours degree (2:2 or above) from an overseas medical school.
Applicants from other healthcare or professional backgrounds relevant to medicine and medical regulation may be admitted to the programme. Such applicants must hold relevant professional qualifications and/or a second-class honours degree.
Reviews
Subjects
- Writing
- Healthcare
- Art
- School
- Medical
- Patient Care
- Medical training
- Humanities
- Working
- Medical tradition
- Social research
Course programme
In Year 1, you take the core module Perspectives, Practices and Patients in Term 1, the compulsory module A Confusion of Tongues: Illness, Language, Writing in Term 2 and Psycho-Social Research: Working Below the Surface in Term 3.
At the end of Year 1, your summer task is to negotiate a placement within another medical tradition, such as British herbalism, acupuncture or traditional Chinese medicine, or another medical speciality that is distinct from your own. A six-week observation of an ‘alternative’ medical practice and tradition forms a fundamental part of the core module in Year 2.
In Year 2, you take the core module Third Spaces: Working with Your Own and Other Cultures in Term 1 and the compulsory module Histories and Representations of Medicine: Practices and Pedagogies in Term 2.
YEAR 1
- A Confusion of Tongues: Illness, Language, Writing
- Perspectives, Practices and Patients (Core 1)
- Psycho-Social Research: Working Below the Surface
- Histories and Representations of Medicine: Practices and Pedagogies
- Third Spaces: working with your own and other cultures (Core 2)
Applied Medical Humanities (Postgraduate Diploma)