The Center for Literature, Medicine and Biomedical Humanities

The Center has four goals for its future development:

To become a national leader in biomedical humanities
to provide the next generation of health care professionals with an understanding of humanities issues
to provide humanities resources and information to health care educators
To raise the level of national discussion of issues in health care and biotechnology.

The Center for Literature, Medicine, and Biomedical Humanities at Hiram College was founded in 1990 to provide interdisciplinary programs, courses, and summer seminars integrating humanities and health care.

As today's technologies of medical science become more complex and demanding, so do the larger ethical, religious, and other humanistic issues that the medical professions face. On one hand, health care professionals struggle to accommodate and apply the explosion of new clinical knowledge. At the same time they must incorporate into day-to-day practice an awareness of how health care fits into and affects the lives of the people they care for.

The Center for Literature, Medicine, and the Health Care Professions exists to meet this need. The mission of the Center is, through literary works, to examine thoroughly questions of human values in health care contexts - and to do so within clinical settings, medical and other health professional schools, and the liberal arts environment.

What distinguishes the Center from conventional medical ethics programs are its special emphases:

Using literary works to raise humanities issues in medical settings;
Developing techniques for teaching literary works in a variety of health care environments, from medical schools to nursing homes;
Using readers' theater as a method for understanding different perspectives of patients, families and health care professionals; and
Applying narrative theory and practice to health care interactions; for example, the patient as story, the doctor as reader.

The Center is housed in Mahan House, a handsome Greek revival building on the Hiram College campus. It is named in honor of Dr. Alfred Catlin Mahan and his wife, Marian Reimann Mahan, who gave generously toward its renovation.

NEWS:

*October 22-23, 2008 - House of God symposium

     *Fall 2008 - Hiram College would like to welcome Michael Blackie from Los Angeles into our community as
       the Assistant Professor of Biomedical Humanities. He will be joining us in July of 2008. Click here to learn
       more about him.

Mahan House, Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio 44234