True to its history, Drexel University College of Medicine trains students to become knowledgeable, caring, and compassionate physicians with all the tools necessary for a lifetime of learning. In today's constantly evolving profession of medicine, this type of training is critical. The college's programs in Medical Humanities and Women's Health Education help students pursue special goals, while "The EDGE" program allows students an opportunity to pursue their own interests for up to a year while in medical school.
Medical Humanities
Through the Medical Humanities program, students learn to frame issues in patient care within a cultural, social and historical perspective. The Medical Humanities are disciplines that better equip medical students to respond to and relieve suffering, understand the experience of illness and disability, and find deeper value in the practice of medicine. They include the arts, philosophy, religious and spiritual thought, history and cultural studies, among others. Students also gain a greater ability to resolve ethical dilemmas, address the social dimensions of disease, and understand the baises and limitations of science.
Faculty members from the humanities program are involved in several medical school courses. Required coursework in bioethics and electives such as Doctor-Patient Communication and Death and Dying are available, as is the innovative Humanities Scholar Program, which lets students design and complete a four-year individualized course of study. A broad range of elective humanities courses is also offered to all students.
Learn more about the Medical Humanities program.
Women's Health Education
Traditionally, physicians were taught medicine from textbooks that used men as models for everything but the female reproductive system. They were taught to give medical care based on clinical research performed largely on men.
Drexel University College of Medicine's predecessor, the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, began changing that bias more than 150 years ago. In 1993, on the forefront of federal recognition of the importance of women's health, Drexel College of Medicine established the Women's Health Education Program (WHEP), which developed the first women's health curriculum in a U.S. medical school. In 1996, WHEP was designated a National Center of Excellence in Women's Health by the Department of Health and Human Services.
WHEP continues Drexel's tradition of pioneering curricular development in women's health, sex and gender medicine, and community health education. For students who are interested in exploring women's health beyond the standard curriculum, options include the Women's Health Seminar Series, the Women's Health Pathway, and the Women's Health Scholars program.
Learn more about the Women's Health Education Program.
The EDGE
The Educational Development and Growth Experience (EDGE) provides the opportunity for a year of additional focused study, research, clinical, or service projects focused on enhancing a student's medical education and fostering personal growth. The project must be approved by the Office of Educational Affairs for a term of no more than one academic year. EDGE students are not charged tuition, but remain actively enrolled in order to qualify for financial aid, student services, and health insurance.