Courses of Interest

ANES 72Q: The Art of Medical Diagnosis: Enhancing Observational Skills through the Study of Art
Terms: Spr
Instructors: Caruso, T. (PI) Rodriguez, S. (PI)

The Art of Medical Diagnosis: Enhancing Observational Skills through the Study of Art is an interactive, multidisciplinary undergraduate course that explores various ways in which studying art increases critical observational skills vital for aspiring health care providers. Students will be introduced to the concept of `Visual Thinking Strategies¿ through classroom, art creation, and museum based activities. Students will apply these skills to both works of art and medical cases. Significant focus will be on engaging in group discussions where they will collaboratively use visual evidence to generate and defend hypothesis. Drawing and sketching from life will play a critical role in honing observational skills through weekly assignments, workshops, and a final project. The interactive nature of this course pivots students away from a typical lecture based course to a self-directed learning experience.

ANES 211SI: Themes in the History of Science and Medicine
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Braitman, L. (PI) Barzilav, J. (TA)

What exactly is a diagnosis, and what is the history of that term? Why do Institutional Review Boards exist, and what atrocities in human medical experimentation occurred to prompt their creation? What is the role of narrative, social construction, and storytelling in medicine? This course will shed light on the ways physicians and scholars grapple with these and other important questions through a series of lectures from historians and philosophers of science, as well as bioethicists and scholars of narrative medicine. These perspectives on how scientific knowledge emerges and changes over time offer invaluable insights and frameworks for anyone aspiring to practice medicine or contribute to the collective body of scientific knowledge.

ANTHRO 176: Cultures, Minds, and Medicine (ANTHRO 276)
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
Instructors: Luhrmann, T.

This workshop aims to bring together scholars from the social sciences, humanities, medicine and bio-science and technology to explore the ways that health and illness are made through complex social forces. We aim for informal, interactive sessions, full of debate and good will. Dates of meetings will be listed in the notes section in the time schedule.

COMPLIT 223: Literature and Human Experimentation (AFRICAAM 223, CSRE 123B, HUMBIO 175H, MED 220)

Terms: Spr
Instructors: Ikoku, A.

This course introduces students to the ways literature has been used to think through the ethics of human subjects research and experimental medicine. We will focus primarily on readings that imaginatively revisit experiments conducted on vulnerable populations: namely groups placed at risk by their classification according to perceived human and cultural differences. We will begin with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), and continue our study via later works of fiction, drama and literary journalism, including Toni Morrison's Beloved, David Feldshuh's Miss Evers Boys, Hannah Arendt's Eichmann and Vivien Spitz's Doctors from Hell, Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical and policy writings of the period; and our ultimate goal will be to understand modes of ethics deliberation that are possible via creative uses of the imagination, and literature's place in a history of ethical thinking about humane research and care.

CSRE 78: Art + Community: Division, Resilience, & Reconciliation (AFRICAAM 78)
Terms: Spr
Instructors: Holt, A-Ian & Chang, Jeff

Freedom is meaningful only if it lifts us all, especially those of us who have been done the most harm. In times of violence and polarization, art brings people together, and can articulate new ways of finding community and freedom. In this course, we will explore how we make and sustain community, especially in the face of threats from within and without. We will do this especially through examining how artists and culture workers of color develop and advance practices that build mutuality, criticality, renewal, trust, and joy in the face of ongoing racial injustice and cultural inequity.

Special Guests include: 

Tarana Burke (#metoo)
Linda Sarsour (Women’s March)
Pasatono Orquesta (Indigenous Oaxacan Music Ensemble) 
Raquel DeAnda (People’s Climate March)
Eugene Rodriguez (Los Cenzontles)
Annette Evans Smith ’99 (Alaska Native Heritage Center)
Climbing Poetree (Queer/Environmental Justice Artist-Activists)
Mia Mingus (Transformative Justice / Disability Justice Activist)
Damon Davis and Sabaah Folayan (Filmmakers of Whose Streets?)
Alex Gibson (appalshop)
Dom Flemons (Grammy Award winning guitarist/folk artist)
Halifu Osumare (UC Davis/Stanford CBPA)
Vicky Holt Takamine (Kumu Hula, Pua Ali’i Ilima)
Judith Smith (Axis Dance Company)
Brandan “BMike”Odums (Studio Be, New Orleans)

...and more!

DANCE 100: Dance, Movement and Medicine: Immersion in Dance for PD
Terms: Spr
Instructors: Frank, D. (PI)

Combining actual dancing with medical research, this Cardinal Course investigates the dynamic complementary relationship between two practices, medicine and dance, through the lens of Parkinson's disease (PD), a progressive neurological disease that manifests a range of movement disorders. "Dance for PD" is an innovative approach to dancing --and to teaching dance --for those challenged by PD. Course format consists of: 1. Weekly Lecture/Seminar Presentation: Partial list of instructors include Ms. Frank, Dr. Bronte-Stewart and other Stanford medical experts & research scientists, David Leventhal (Director, "Dance for PD") and Bay Area "Dance for PD" certified master teachers, film-maker Dave Iverson, Damara Ganley, and acclaimed choreographers Joe Goode, Alex Ketley, Judith Smith (AXIS Dance). 2. Weekly Dance Class: Stanford students will fully participate as dancers, and creative partners, in the Stanford Neuroscience Health Center's ongoing "Dance for Parkinson's" community dance class for people with PD. This Community Engaged Learning component provides opportunity to engage meaningfully with people in the PD community. Dancing together weekly, students will experience firsthand the embodied signature values of "Dance for PD" classes: full inclusion, embodied presence, aesthetic and expressive opportunity for creative engagement, and community-building in action. A weekly debriefing session within Friday's class time will allow students to integrate seminar material with their movement experiences. NO PRE-REQUISITES: No prior dance experience required. Beginners are welcome.

DANCE 106: Choreography Project: Dancing, Recollected
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Frank, D. (PI) ; Ketley, A. (PI)

Collaboratively directed by Ketley and Frank, students will create dance material prompted by weekly interactions with residents of Lytton Gardens Assisted Living Residence. Students will meet twice weekly: once in studio on-campus, and once on-site with Lytton residents. Drawing from interviews and interactions with Lytton residents, students will engage in an evolving rehearsal process including movement score creation,, aesthetic discussion, revision with active involvement of the residents, and performance. The course culminates in performance(s) of the dance work for Lytton residents, staff, and families on-site at the end of the quarter.

EMED 205: Film and Television Emergencies: Grasp Emergency Care through Pop Culture
Term: Aut
Instructor: Curtis, H.

Although popular shows such as Grey's Anatomy successfully enthrall an audience, they often exchange accuracy for entertainment value. This course aims to "set the record straight" and deconstruct these medical dramas into the technical and non-technical skills involved in handling medical emergencies. Working in small groups and guided by emergency medicine faculty, students will actively curate content for discussions about the appropriate usage of these skills. Topics range from CPR and stroke management to decisionmaking and the social influence of medial dramas.

EMED 228: Emergency Video Production: Tell a Story that Matters
Term: Win
Instructor: Curtis, H.

Do you have a story to tell? Would you like to make an impact on emergency care through film? Would you like to work as part of a film team? Film has an increasing role in shaping the public's perceptions of and relationship to healthcare, with huge potential to act as a vehicle for impactful change. This course will describe and practice the entire filmmaking process from preproduction and production through to postproduction completion. Step by step you will learn to tell stories that matter in ways that will get people to care. You will learn visual strategies for imparting exciting knowledge. When the quarter is complete, we will have produced a film from start to finish that you can share. No prior film experience is required.

ENGLISH 189D: Literature and Science
Terms: Spr
Instructors: Brink-Roby, H. (PI)

Classic literary and scientific works by writers such as Darwin, Thomas Hardy, Einstein, and Virginia Woolf. Considers how literature assays the consequences and potential of scientific theories within the subtle orderings of narrative, how a scientific theory is developed through and precipitated in language, and how novelists and scientists think outside the accumulated meanings of their time. Attends to their shared methods and preoccupations, including rendering visible the invisible; the idea of the generally significant individual; changing models of the shape of history; the contours of experiment; the cult and culture of experience and the dream of objectivity; regulative and investigatory fictions. Some discussion of literature and medicine.

FAMMED 200SI: United States of Healthcare: A Geographic Survey of American Healthcare Disparities
Terms: Win
Instructors: Cullen, M. (PI) ; Azad, A. (SI) ; Levy, N. (SI) ; Shearer, E. (SI) ; Yoo, J. (SI) ; Zhao, E. (SI)

This dinner seminar will describe the various ways in which healthcare is experienced and practiced across the country. Each class will focus on one region of the nation and examine the socioeconomic, geographic, historical and cultural factors that contribute to one present-day disparity localized to the region. By examining several topics in depth, this course aims to illustrate how community and state-level discrepancies affect individual experiences and the role physicians can play in making healthcare more equitable and accessible to all. 

FAMMED 210: The Healer’s Art
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Feldstein, B.

Explores the human dimensions of medicine, creating a firm foundation for meeting the challenging demands of medical training and practice. Based on curriculum developed by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen at UCSF . (For details/evaluations see http://ishiprograms.org/programs-medical_educators.html). Medical students and faculty participate together in an innovative discovery model process that enables an in-depth sharing of experience, beliefs, aspirations and personal truths. Topics include deep listening, presence, acceptance, loss, grief, healing, relationship, encounters with awe and mystery, finding meaning, service, and self-care practices. No papers/exams. May be repeated for credit.

FAMMED 213: Medical Tai Chi
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
Instructors: Kane, B. (PI)

Tai chi is a recognized form of complimentary and alternative medicine. Class is intended to promote student health and well-being and to decrease stress, depression, and anxiety through tai chi practice. Course focuses on weekly practice and analysis of the literature/research regarding health benefits of tai chi.

FAMMED 252: Medicine & Horsemanship: An Outdoor, Equine Assisted Learning Course for Doctor-Patient Relationship
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Kane, B.; Schillinger, E.

An outdoor experience working with horses to develop interpersonal skills for the clinician-patient and peer-peer relationship. A challenge throughout a clinical career is to conduct relationships with patients and colleagues in a manner that is professional, perceptive, confident, and authentic. Horses mirror and magnify our intentions and behaviors. Working with horses requires sensitivity to nonverbal cues, discrimination in the quality and amount of physical contact, and an awareness of one's emotional state, all important skills for relating to patients. Horses give non-judgmental feedback about our personal communication and leadership styles and our ability to operate from a place of empathy and kindness. The course also teaches how to recognize subjectivity in judgment and how to overcome fear and immobility in the face of uncertainty. No riding is required and no previous horse experience is assumed. Open to anyone with direct patient care responsibility, space permitting. Limit 12 students.

HUMBIO 120: Health Care in America: An Introduction to U.S. Health Policy
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Barr, D.

Health policy and health care delivery from a historical and a current policy perspective. Introduces cost, quality, and access as measures of health system performance. Considers institutional aspects of health care reform.

HUMBIO 167: The Art of Vision
Term: Win
Instructors: Marmor, M.

This course is about eyes and art. We explore how eyes are built, how they process visual information, and how they are affected by disease. And we explore how fine art and famous artists (from all eras, ancient to modern) have depended upon vision, both normal and abnormal. There are short diversions into animal eyes and the role of vision in music, literature, and sports. Prerequisite: HumBio 4A or BIO 42 or consent of Instructor.

INDE 211: Creative Writing for Medical Students
Term: Win
Instructors: Braitman, L.

Provides a forum for writers of all levels and offers the chance for serious attention to students' writing. We will examine multiple uses of creative writing, including understanding the experience of medical training. We will also recommend explorations for further development.

INDE 212 Medical Humanities and the Arts
Term: Spr
Instructors: Shafer, A.

The interdisciplinary field of medical humanities: the use of the arts and humanities to examine medicine in personal, social, and cultural contexts. Topics include the doctor/patient relationship, the patient perspective, the meaning of doctoring, and the meaning of illness. Sources include visual and performing arts, film, and literary genres such as poetry, fiction, and scholarly writing. Designed for medical students in the Biomedical Ethics and Medical Humanities Scholarly Concentration, but all students are welcome.

INDE 214: Stanford Medical Student Journal
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
Instructors: Shafer, A.

Provides an opportunity for editors of all levels to cultivate their skills and assist in preparing pieces submitted by colleagues for publication in the Stanford Medical Student Journal. Students enrolled in the course work closely with student authors as well as other editors. Editors examine multiple categories of writing, including opinion pieces, poetry, memoirs, book reviews, case reports and investigative reports. The Journal is published two to three times per year and highlights the diverse talents of Stanford medical students in both scientific writing and the humanities.

INDE 273: Medical Improvisation
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Nevins, A. (PI)

Medicine, like theater, is both a skill set and an art form. The practice of medicine demands exceptional communicative, cognitive, and interpersonal skills in order to respond to unpredictable situations while interacting with a wide variety of individuals. Improvisational theater skills have a surprising and substantial overlap with those required of clinicians. Improv is a genre of performance art grounded in principles of spontaneity, adaptability, collaboration, and skilled listening. In this course, the principles and training techniques of improvisational theater are used to highlight and improve awareness, communication, and teamwork in the field of medicine. Limited enrollment.

MED 10Q: Literature, Medicine, & Empathy
Terms: Winter
Instructor: Shaw, J

In recent years, there has been a groundswell of interest in empathy as a key competency of the emotionally intelligent, and a primary motivator of moral behavior. But what is empathy, exactly? This seminar will seek to find out, exploring the concept through the lens of literature and medicine. nReading novels and exploring the philosophical beginnings of the term empathy, we will learn about the range of ways in which human beings have attempted to know and understand the other. Guided by research studies and our own experience, we will explore the critical question of whether empathy really does lead to altruism. We will consider why it can be so hard for human beings to walk in another's shoes and why we so often fail to do so. Through memoirs of suffering, we will learn about empathy in medicine and about what the latest studies in biology and neuroscience can teach us about how we relate to each other. Lastly, we will explore the dangers and limitations of empathy, reading scholarly circuits and discussing the role of empathy in life and society.

MED 201: Internal Medicine: Body as Text
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Kugler, J.; Ozdalga, E.; Verghese, A.

Body as Text refers to the idea that every patient's body tells a story. The narrative includes the past and present of a person's social and medical condition; it is a demonstration of the phenotype. The art of reading the body as text was at its peak in the first half of the 20th century, but as technology has become ascendant, bedside skills and the ability to read the text have faded. Beyond scientific knowledge and medical facts, it is this often forgotten craft which is at the heart of the excitement of being an internist. This course introduces students to the art of the clinical exam, to developing a clinical eye, and learning to see the body in a completely different way.

MED217S1: Being Mortal - Medicine, Mortality, & Caring For Older Adults
Terms: Spr
Instructor: Pompei, Peter

Mortality is the inevitable, final outcome of human health. Though medical education focuses on treating illness and prolonging life, healthcare professionals in practice mi=ust face the fact that pateints' lives cnnot always be saved. This course will explore the difficult issues such as end-of-life planning, decision-making, and cost of care, that figure in hospitals, hospice, and assisted living centers. Guest speakers will include elderly care workers, medical writers and filmmakers, and physicians in geriatrics, oncology, and palliative care, who will lead student discussions following their lectures. Upon finishing the course, students will learn how to better handle aging and death in their medical practice, in order to improve the quality of their patients' lives -- and that of their families. 

MED 234: Literature and Global Health (AFRICAAM 229, AFRICAST 229, COMPLIT 229, CSRE 129B, FRENCH 229, HUMBIO 175L)
Terms: Win
Instructors: Ikoku, A. (PI)

This course examines the ways writers in literature and medicine have used the narrative form to explore the ethics of care in what has been called the developing world. We will begin with a call made by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet for a literature of global health, namely fiction modeled on the social reform novels of the nineteenth century, meant to have helped readers develop a conscience for public health during its emergence as a modern specialty. We will then spend the quarter understanding how colonial, postcolonial, and world literatures may answer and complicate this call. Readings will include prose fiction by Albert Camus, Joseph Conrad, Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Amitav Ghosh, Susan Sontag as well as physician memoirs featuring Frantz Fanon, Albert Schweitzer, Abraham Verghese, Paul Farmer. And each literary reading will be paired with medical, philosophical, and policy writings that deeply inform the field of global health. Special Note: Course Limited to 30, with 10 reserved for MED registrants from the School of Medicine. Once full, please see Axess or Registrar's Office (not the course professor) for placement on the waitlist.

OSPOXFRD 27: Medical Ethics through Literature and Film
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Giffard, R.

Readings by authors who were or are physicians including Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Bulgakov, William Carlos Williams, Audry Shafer, and Atul Gawande - poems, short and long fiction. Works about medicine or characters who have medical conditions affecting their lives and interactions with others. Practice of medicine and its effects on both physicians and patients, with attention to the ethical and moral issues intrinsic to health and disease. We will also consider movies and plays. Topics: doctor patient relationship; infectious disease such as plague and TB; mental illness; death and dying; disability; surgery.

OSPOXFRD94: Directed Reading in the History of Neurology and Neuroscience
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Giffard R.

Readings will cover aspects of how thinking about the brain and the functions of thought and sensation evolved from ancient times to the present, including the influence of political and religious history on scientific development. There will be a focus on the period of the 17th century when developments in Oxford were a major force in the birth and early development of modern medicine and physiology. In Oxford, Thomas Willis played a central role in the birth of neurology as a field within medicine. Readings can include works about Thomas Willis and the natural philosophers with whom he interacted. Selected topics in modern neuroscience and the role of new techniques in addressing questions in brain function can be explored.

PSYC 53Q: Secret Mind: Getting to Know and Living with your Unconscious
Terms: Spr
Instructors: Steiner, H. (PI)

Focuses on the motivational unconscious. Topics include the science of the unconscious mind and the techniques used to gain conscious access to these psychological process, as well as methods of exploring students' own unconscious for creative purposes and to understand personal habits, reactions, motives, emotions and thoughts. Case-based, problem-oriented format utilized to develop foundational understanding of the science of the unconscious mind. Emphasis on student study of self and own unconscious as case for the class. Student privacy will be protected.

SOMGEN 203: Literature and Writing for Military Affiliated Students
Terms: Aut, Spr
Instructors: Genovese, J.

Focus is on military literature and workshopping students' writing about their military experiences. No writing experience necessary. Dinner and course materials provided free for all students.

SOMGEN 213: The Art of Observation: Enhancing Clinical Skills Through Visual Analysis
Term: Win
Instructors: Shafer, A.; Rodriguez, S.

Offers medical students the opportunity to enhance their observational and descriptive abilities by analyzing works of art in the Stanford museums. Working with the Cantor Arts Center staff and Stanford Art History PhD candidates, students spend time in each session actively looking at and describing works in the gallery. Discussion with medical school faculty follows, providing a clinical correlate to the gallery session. Classes interrogate a different theme of medical observation and clinical practice and includes opportunities for an applied clinical session in the hospital with course-affiliated physicians.

SOMGEN 216: Medical Etymology
Terms: Spr
Instructors: Shafer, A.; Melkonian, A.

A survey of medical eymology and terminology that parallels preclinical medical education. Topics focus on Greek and Latin roots and their appearances in the medical lexicon.

SOMGEN 225: Winning Writing
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Kramon, G.

The lessons that help New York Times journalists write more powerfully and persuasively can help doctors too. In five sessions we will study techniques for writing better. And we will practice. Students will receive constructive feedback in class (for those who want to volunteer their work for the group to read) and afterward (for those who prefer private critiques). Each session will address a different area of writing: 1) the basics, including emails and memos, 2) writing effectively about yourself, 3) giving feedback, 4) patient progress notes, 5) opinion pieces for a large audience.The instructor, Glenn Kramon, is an editor who has helped New York Times reporters win 10 Pulitzer Prizes. He has taught a similar course at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for three years.

SURG 150: Global Humanitarian Medicine
Terms: Aut
Instructors: Srivastava, S.

Open to undergraduate students and medical students. Focus is on understanding the theory behind medical humanitarianism, the growing role of surgery in international health, and the clinical skills necessary for students to partake in global medical service. Guest speakers include world-renowned physicians and public health workers. Students enrolling for 2 units complete an additional, substantial final project.

SURG 214SI: Medical Etymology
Terms: Aut, Win
Instructors: Melkonian, A., Srivastava, S.

A survey of medical etymology and terminology that parallels preclinical medical education. Topics focus on Greek and Latin roots and their appearances in the medical lexicon.