Click Here to Visit the Website of ​Indigenous Students Health Sciences Office The ​Indigenous Students Health Sciences (​ISHS) Office works to support Indigenous students in their academic achievements. It offers an Indigenous Health Elective (​IHE), the objective of which is to provide students with knowledge and skills related to health care practice and policy from within ​Indigenous contexts. The ​IHE is open to both undergraduate HTH SCI 3AH3 and graduate students, GLB HTH 715, and as a horizontal elective. Please click on the above links for more information.

Click Here to Download the PDF file on the McMaster Museum of Art: The Art of Seeing Program The McMaster Museum of Art runs the Art of Seeing visual literacy program for Residents of McMaster University’s Department of Family Medicine, with the aim of nourishing the development of empathetic and reflective doctors who are better able to engage with their patients in more comprehensive ways. For more information please contact Dr. Joyce Zazulak, Lawrence Grierson, or Nicole Knibb.

Click Here to Visit the Website of Bachelor of Health Sciences Program Dr. Hartley Jafine facilitates applied drama and arts based courses within the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) program and Arts & Sciences program at McMaster University.  The work includes undergraduate health science education, professional health science training programs and clinical environments. Below is a selection of Dr. Jafine’s talks and interviews that highlight his work within the medical/health humanities:

• Dramatic Arts in Health (Tedx McMaster)
• Arts Health Network Snapshot
• Healing Through Play (McMaster University’s The Sil)
• The Role of Drama within Health Sciences (McMaster University’s Meducator)
• Engaging the Stage: Applied Theatre as Simulation (Baycrest Health Sciences)

For more information, please visit Dr. Jafine’s page or the university’s course calendar.

Click Here to Vist the Website of Centre for Peace Studies. The interdisciplinary teaching and research conducted by the Centre for Peace Studies focuses on peace through health, human rights, peace education, and peace activism and advocacy. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Nancy Doubleday: Hope Chair in Peace and Health with research interests in ecological-social-cultural systems, international law and policy, the Arctic Region and globalization
• Dr. Susan Searls Giroux: critical theory and cultural studies, globalization, race/ethnic studies, and radical theories of education

Click Here to Visit the Website of Department of Anthropology Courses in the Department of Anthropology emphasize many perspectives which relate to the medical humanities. These include cultural perspectives (the cultivation of well-being, biomedical and scientific knowledges), historical perspectives (the evolution and emergence of infectious diseases, past epidemics, medicinal plants, bioarcheology), and biocultural perspectives (studies of nutrition and obesity, health inequalities, syndemics, ethnicity and health). The department also offers a graduate program with a concentration in Culture, Health, and Disease. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Ellen Badone: social, emotional, and bodily crisis and healing, anthropology of religion, medical anthropology with a geographic focus on France
• Dr. Ann Herring: infectious diseases and epidemics, determinants of health in Canada
• Dr. Tina Moffatt: child health and nutrition in Canada and South Asia
• Dr. Hendrik Poinar: biological anthropology and evolution of infectious diseases
• Dr. Tracy Prowse: diet, health, and mobility in past populations

Click Here to Visit the Website of Department of Classics The Department of Classics offers CLASSICS 2MT3: Ancient Roots – Medical Terminology. This is an open course with no prerequisites that presents the Greek and Latin roots of and predictable combination patterns of contemporary medical terminology. Please consult the university’s course calendar for the class schedule. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Michele George: death, class, slavery, family studies, archeology

Click Here to Visit the Website of Department of Health, Aging and Society Research in the Department of Health, Aging and Society takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine a wide range of issues and topics related to the fields of health studies and social gerontology. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Gavin Andrews: aging, holistic medicine, health care education and work, fitness cultures, health histories of places
• Dr. Jim Dunn: socio-economic inequalities in health, mental health, and urban areas
• Dr. Chelsea Gabel: Aboriginal health policy, Aboriginal women’s health, community-controlled health care, and ethics
• Dr. James Gillett: health and illness, interspecies relations, life writing, sport and physical activity, media and communications
• Dr. Amanda Grenier: social and cultural constructs of aging, social constructs of frailty and the fourth age, inequality in later life; the fit between policy frameworks and lived experiences of late life
• Dr. Meridith Griffin: social and psychological aspects of aging, health and well-being, disability, gender, and embodiment
• Dr. Lydia Kapiriri: health systems and global health research, public and global health ethical issues

Click Here to Visit the Page of Department of History The Department of History offers a broad range of courses with themes related to the medical humanities, including social histories of diseases, women’s history, Canadian sport history, and others. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Ellen Amster: Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine with a research focus on maternal and infant health, public health, and the history of biomedicine in the Islamic, French colonial, and global contexts
• Dr. Karen Balcom: women’s history, social and child welfare policy, transnational and transracial adoption; also teaches in the Women’s Studies and Gender Studies and Feminist Research (GSFR) program
• Dr. Nancy Bouchier: historical and socio-cultural aspects of sport and physical activity, with an emphasis on gender, social class, and the environment
• Dr. Ken Cruikshank: social and environmental history of Canada
• Dr. Juanita de Barros: social history of health and medicine, with a focus on the Caribbean and African diaspora
• Dr. Michael Egan: histories of science, technology, and the environment
• Dr. John Weaver: urban government, housing, criminal justice, and land policy

Click Here to Visit the Website of Department of Mechanical Engineering A key specialization in the Department of Mechanical Engineering is biomechanics, with an emphasis on the mechanics of biological tissues and muscles, the circulatory and respiratory systems, movement and skeletal biomechanics, and experimental and numerical modeling techniques. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Tohid Didar: biofunctional interfaces for development of biomaterials, biosensors and medical coatings, large-scale microfluidic systems for “organ-on-chip” developments for drug discovery and assessment
• Dr. Ishwar Puri: mathematical biology of disease, pollutant airborne emissions
• Dr. Cheryl Quenneville: director of the McMaster Injury Biomechanics Laboratory
• Dr. P. Ravi Selvaganapathy: microfluidics in drug discovery, medical/environmental diagnosis and drug delivery
• Dr. Gregory Wohl: biomechanics of musculoskeletal systems, bone adaptation to mechanical stimuli and injury

Click Here to Visit the Website of Department of Religious Studies The Department of Religious Studies offers courses with an emphasis on Asian and Western religious traditions, Biblical studies, religion and culture, and religion, philosophy, and politics. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Ellen Badone: death, anthropology of religion, medical anthropology
• Dr. James Benn: bodily practice in Chinese religions
• Dr. Shayne Clarke: the family in Indian Buddhist monastic practice
• Dr. Travis Kroeker: theology and ethics in western thought and culture
• Dr. Celia E. Rothenberg: anthropology of religion and gender

Click to Visit the Website of Department of Sociology The Department of Sociology focuses on six research areas: social inequality; gender, sexuality, and family; work; social psychology; race, ethnicity, and immigration; and politics, social movements, and policy. Individual courses focus on areas such as family, gender, health and health care, occupations, and sexualities. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Jeffrey Denis: First Nations communities and relationships between settlers and Aboriginal peoples, with a focus on health issues
• Dr. Tina Fetner: sexualities, social movement, gender, and social inequality
• Dr. James Gillett: health and illness, interspecies relations, life writing, sport and physical activity, media and communications
• Dr. Paul Glavin: work issues and mental health outcomes of work/family conflict
• Dr. Melanie Heath: gender, sexualities, family politics, social inequality, global social change
• Dr. Dorothy Pawluch: social problems, deviance, and health
• Dr. Robert Storey: worker health and safety, workers’ compensation labour history
• Dr. Phillip G. White: sociology and history of sport, gender, sexuality and leisure
• Dr. Marisa Young: sociology of mental and urban health, work and occupations

The Hannah Unit in the History of Medicine is directed by Ellen Amster, the Jason A. Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine.  Our mandate is to introduce the history of medicine and medical humanities to students, faculty, and staff in the Faculty of Health Sciences, and we seek to foster collaboration and dialogue between the medical, science, and humanities colleagues at McMaster University. The Hannah Unit maintains the History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Research Portal, organizes a yearly colloquium series in the History of Medicine and Medical Humanities at McMaster University that is open to all students, faculty, staff, and the public, and Dr. Amster leads a global health study abroad program open to all McMaster undergraduate students, International Global Health Study Abroad Program, Maternal and Infant Health in Morocco:  Women’s Rights and Family in Islam. We are located in Chester New Hall 616 and in Health Sciences Centre 3H3 (Office of the Hannah Chair).

Click to Visit the Website of Indigenous Studies Program The Indigenous Studies Program offers a number of courses that relate to the medical humanities, including courses on traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge, spirituality, Indigenous medicine, and Haudenosaunee health, diet, and traditional botany.  For more information and prerequisites please refer to the Program’s website or the university’s course calendar.  Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Dawn Martin-Hill:  Indigenous women, traditional medicine and health
• Dr. Chelsea Gabel:  Indigenous health and aging, gender and sexuality
• Amber Skye, MPH:  Indigenous women’s reproductive and maternal health

For detailed information on courses, prerequisites and more, please visit the Program’s website or contact the Student Counselor, Josh Dockstator, at indigenous.counsellor@mcmaster.ca.

Click to Visit the Website of Interdisciplinary Global Health Undergraduate Program, Maternal and Infant Health in Morocco: Women’s Rights and Family in Islam (Spring) A global health program offered by McMaster University designed to provide undergraduate students with an integrated linguistic, cultural, and public health experience in the Islamic African country of Morocco. In the urban component (3 weeks), students learn the social determinants of health, the array of social factors that affect women’s reproductive health and infant health:

• Tuberculosis and HIV morbidity, and national policies for their prevention in Morocco, from the National Institute of Hygiene.
• Violence against women, marital rape, child abandonment, and unwed motherhood.
• Feminist, Islamic, and international NGOs that support women and children.
• AIDS prevention and the work of the AIDS NGO “Association de Lutte Contre le SIDA,” which advocates for AIDS infected persons, studies AIDS prevalence, and trains prostitutes, MSM, and illegal sub-Saharan African immigrants as AIDS peer educators.
• US health interventions in Morocco (Peace Corps, USAID).

In the rural component (1 week), students have a hands-on fieldwork experience that focuses on community health, the challenges of providing maternal and infant health care outside the state support structure, and the environmental determinants of health. The program leader, Dr. Ellen Amster, is the Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine and associate professor in the Departments of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of History, and has fifteen years of medical fieldwork experience in Morocco. She is the author of Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the Colonial Encounter in Morocco, 1877–1956, from University of Texas Press (2013). For more information, visit the program website.To apply, please contact Dr. Amster.

Click Here to Visit the Website of Master of Public Health The Faculty of Health Sciences offers a Master of Public Health program in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics to graduate public health professionals with the knowledge, skills, and competencies to fully contribute to Canada’s public health system and broader health social systems. For more information on the MPH program please click here.

Click Here to Visit the McMaster Divinity College Divinity College is an independent, interdenominational Christian seminary affiliated with McMaster University and the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec. It offers the following programs of study: Ph.D. (Christian Theology), M.A. (Christian Studies), Master of Divinity (M.Div.), Master of Theological Studies (M.T.S.), Graduate Diploma in Ministry, and Graduate Certificate in Christian Studies. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Mark J. Boda: prayer and penitence in Old Testament and Christian theology
• Dr. Gordon L. Heath: church–state and church–war issues
• Dr. Wendy J. Porter: theological reflection
• Dr. Steven M. Studebaker: Christianity and culture
• Dr. Cynthia Long Westfall: gender and the Bible, Paul and gender, biblical social justice

• Dr. Phil Zylla: pastoral theology and the theology of suffering

Click Here to Visit the Website of McMaster Institute for Healthier Environments Under the direction of Dr. Jim Dunn, the McMaster Institute for Healthier Environments (MIHE) takes a pluralistic view of the environments that can shape human health, and specializes in research that can facilitate action for healthier environments. Its work is based on strong and deep partnerships with communities, informal and formal organizations, and with government at all levels. It takes a cross-faculty, interdisciplinary approach to all areas of health and environments research, with a special focus on built environments and health, healthier environments for children, water and health, and environmental equity.

Click Here to Visit the Website of School of Geography & Earth Sciences The School of Geography & Earth Sciences offers courses on human geographies (including social, cultural, urban, and economic geography), as well as environmental science courses on sustainability and the effects of human activity upon climate and the hydrologic cycle. Faculty whose research and teaching interests relate to the medical humanities include:

• Dr. Altaf Arain: climatology, global climate models and air pollution
• Dr. Luc Bernier: environmental geochemistry, climate change, virology
• Dr. Vera Chouinard: geographies of gender and disability, representations of mental ill health
• Dr. Richard Harris: housing, suburban development, urban social and historical geography
• Dr. Suzanne Mills: equity and unions, gender, Aboriginal identity and work in natural resource, industries, labour and the environment
• Dr. K. Bruce Newbold: immigration and health, aging issues
• Dr. Darren Scott: active travel, GIS, and sustainable transportation
• Dr. Allison Williams: informal and family caregiving, home and community health care, palliative care, urban health, women’s health, and health determinants
• Dr. Robert D. Wilton: geographies of disability, addiction, and mental health, and social geographies of exclusion
• Dr. Niko Yiannakoulias: medical geography, injury epidemiology, child health

Click Here to Visit the Website of Water Without Borders The Water Without Borders program is a collaborative graduate diploma program in water, environment, and health between McMaster University and the United Nations University–Institute for Water, Environment a& Health (UNU–INWEH). The three-course program provides an interdisciplinary, research- and policy-oriented learning experience for students interested in the relationships between water, environment, and health. Students from all faculties are eligible, although the program must be undertaken in conjunction with a graduate degree program at McMaster. For additional information please visit the program website or send an email to wwbdir@mcmaster.ca.