Clinical Humanities Certificate Program in Dentistry
In 2015, the McGovern Center joined forces with the UTHealth School of Dentistry to offer a Clinical Humanities Certificate Program—the first of its kind in any United States dental school.
The Clinical Humanities Certificate Program at the School of Dentistry encompasses the first three years of dental school training. It has structured programs and learning opportunities that allow students to reflect, share, and work together to enhance their individual and collective capacities to see and care for the patient. Students completing this program have their certificates conferred at a banquet in April each year. They also receive recognition at the School of Dentistry Senior Awards Banquet.
The program enables students to enrich their humanities education through participation in elective courses, lecture series, writing workshops, and the production of original scholarly work.
Program Goals
- To enhance the traditional dental curriculum, given that dentistry is both an art and a science.
- To explore health care through the lenses of history, ethics, law, literature, religion and spirituality, social sciences, cultural studies, and the arts by providing students with insight into the human condition and a patient-centered approach to health care.
- To enhance students’ abilities to cultivate that most important instrument of healing—their individual selves
- To assist students in becoming culturally competent, ethical, and compassionate caregivers.
Program Requirements
Good Academic Standing Requirement
To remain in the Clinical Humanities Certificate Program, the student must maintain good academic standing in all courses.
Make-up Credit
Requirements for each academic year must be completed by the end of that academic year. If a student cannot meet the program requirements, make-up credit may be obtained for each event missed by completing a make-up assignment. The deadline for make-up work is one month after notification of the deficiency
Completion of the Program
No student may receive the certificate without the co-directors’ approval, and the co-directors retain the discretion to drop a student from the Certificate Program for failure to comply with any of the requirements or for other good cause. The co-directors shall also have the authority to modify, waive, or reconfigure the program requirements, where necessary, to promote equity and fairness in the event of unforeseen complications or exigent circumstances.
Contact Information
Deborah Franklin, DDS, MA, Co-director
Nathan Carlin, PhD, Co-director