Nathan Carlin, Ph.D.

Professor
Director of McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics
John P. McGovern, MD Chair in Medical Humanities

Samuel E. Karff, DHL Chair, McGovern Center For Humanities & Ethics
Director, Medical Humanities Scholarly Concentration
Co-Director, Clinical Humanities Certificate Program
McGovern Medical School
UTHealth Houston

Email:   Nathan.Carlin@uth.tmc.edu
Phone:  713-500-5080

Biography

Nathan Carlin, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), is Associate Professor in the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Dr. Carlin holds the Samuel Karff Chair, and he was elected as the Chair of the Faculty Senate of McGovern Medical School for academic year 2018-2019.

Dr. Carlin directs the Medical Humanities Scholarly Concentration for medical students and he co-directs the Clinical Humanities Certificate Program for dental students. At McGovern Medical School, he also holds appointments in the Department of Family Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Carlin also has appointments at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the UTHealth School of Dentistry, and the Institute for Spirituality and Health.

Dr. Carlin has published over 100 chapters, articles, book reviews, and commentaries. Additionally, he is the author or co-author of 6 books and the coeditor of 1 book. These include: Living in Limbo: Life in the Midst of Uncertainty; 100 Years of Happiness: Insights and Findings from the Experts; Religious Mourning: Reversals and Restorations in Psychological Portraits of Religious Leaders; Medical Humanities: An Introduction; The Gift of Sublimation: A Psychoanalytic Study of Multiple Masculinities; Pastoral Aesthetics: A Theological Perspective on Principlist Bioethics; and Teaching Health Humanities.

Educational Philosophy

In terms of educational theory, the thinker that has had the biggest impact on me is psychotherapist Carl Rogers, creator of the client-centered approach. In psychotherapy, Rogers argued that persons do not need to be “fixed” by mental health professionals. Rather, people are best helped when they are given freedom and when they are listened to with close attention. Rogers applied his views regarding psychotherapy to education, pioneering a student-centered approach. Just as clients do not need to be repaired by psychologists or psychiatrists, students do not need the pontifications of professors. Rogers felt that what his clients and his students needed most were autonomy and affirmation. Thus, Rogers argued against literary canons, and even exams. For Rogers, education is liberation; it is not the continued sanctification of tradition.

Following Rogers, while not quite as radical as him (e.g., I still affirm the value of exams), I see myself as a curator of curiosities. I expose students to materials that I find interesting, excellent, and beautiful. I want students to keep the books that I assign because they are so striking. While my choices of readings are, of course, political—as all such choices are—I do not insist on a “right” point of view in my classes. Students are encouraged to disagree with texts and each other.

Also, in terms of pedagogical method, I rarely lecture, unless the class is so large that a lecture is required. Instead, I facilitate discussions. Even when my class sizes are fairly large (e.g., 25 students), I still maintain a seminar format by means of “fish-bowl” discussions. In these, two circles are formed. The inner-circle sits at the table and discusses the text for the vast majority of the class, while the outer-circle sits in chairs beyond and around the table and actively listens. At the end of class, everyone gets a chance to speak. Students rotate session to session, alternating between the inner-circle and the outer-circle. For me, maintaining discussions—instead of lecturing—is key in terms of operationalizing Rogers’s insights because learning, if it is to be transformative, has its best chances of being so when it is active.

Education

Bachelor of Arts
Westminster College

Master of Divinity
Princeton Theological Seminary

Master of Arts
Rice University

Doctor of Philosophy
Rice University

Areas of Expertise and Interests

Research Interests
Medical Humanities and Bioethics
Pastoral Theology
Psychoanalysis of Religion

Publications

Read my PubMed publications

Carlin, N. (2015). Doctors and Dr. Seuss: Restoring the patient’s voice. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 24(1), 113-119.

Cole, T. R., Carlin, N., & Carson, R. A. (2014). Medical humanities: An introduction. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Carlin, N. (2014). Religious mourning: Reversals and restorations in psychological portraits of religious leaders. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Cole, T. R., & Carlin, N. (2009). The suffering of physicians. The Lancet, 374(9699), 1414-1415.