A New Prescription

Kirsten noticed that when AIDS activists produced their own media, they humanized patients, treating them with dignity and respect. “I realized that the choices we make about representing vulnerable people can have a lasting impact — for better or worse.”

In 2016, Kirsten helped launch the Medical Humanities minor at Rice. The program takes an interdisciplinary approach in the exploration of how concepts of disease interact with historical, cultural, social, religious, aesthetic and ethical aspects of the human experience. The medical humanities field has grown in recent years, as professionals have recognized the indelible impact that building holistic relationships with patients has on health outcomes.

This year, the introduction to medical humanities course attracted more than 200 students across academic backgrounds, and 76 students declared the minor. “These perspectives are slowly making their way into the educational model for health professionals, but we have a huge role to play at the undergraduate level to prepare future leaders who can help accelerate this paradigm shift at a national scale."

In the fall of 2023, Rice launched its Medical Humanities Research Institute, the only institute in the United States and one of few in the world solely dedicated to research in the field. Kirsten serves as director of the institute, leading a team of humanities researchers, artists, social scientists, engineers, clinicians and other professionals whose focus is on supporting patients by understanding their lived experiences

“One area of research where we have particular strength focuses on the ethical issues related to the emergence of AI,” she explained. “As health care is transformed through technological innovation, patients are at risk of being seen as datasets, not as people. The institute is working with partners in the Texas Medical Center to make patient voices heard, so that their lived experiences shape the meaning that is made of their health data and the uses of AI in their care.”

A New Skill Set for a New Generation of Doctors

Allison Taffet ’21 says that her medical humanities minor not only complemented her biochemistry and cell biology major, but also gave her the experiences and knowledge she needed to succeed in medical school. Allison, now a fourth-year medical student at New York University, recalls how one of the first courses in the medical humanities sparked her interest in medical history.

“We went on a field trip to the archives in the Texas Medical Center, and I ultimately did my capstone project on the medical history of two local hospitals in Houston,” she said. “I think the history of medicine is pretty quirky, and I like it because it seems to pierce the illusion that medicine is something so noble and organized. In fact, we can look back on past approaches or technology and see that medicine is constantly evolving.”

Allison is still deciding on a path after graduation, but she says that the minor gave her a skill set to think more critically in medical school and when working with patients

“You spend so much time just memorizing things, but because of my minor, I stop and think about why I am memorizing this information and how we arrived at this conclusion. I just have a completely different approach to learning now.“You spend so much time just memorizing things, but because of my minor, I stop and think about why I am memorizing this information and how we arrived at this conclusion. I just have a completely different approach to learning now.

As the Medical Humanities Research Institute at Rice equips future health care workers, like Allison, with an innovative framework to support positive health outcomes, Kirsten says that the community support has been overwhelming

“We have so many eager partners looking to expand on the work that we are already doing, and we are only limited by the human bandwidth of our small but mighty team,” she said. “In order to meet the growing demand for our courses and research opportunities, we must attract and retain preeminent faculty, and we must train the next generation of researchers. We are also looking for support for international workshops so we can convene with experts from higher education and health care to share our research.”