The prevalence of STEM students and majors at UW is glaringly obvious. There is a plethora of science buildings, especially on south campus. During the 2021-2022 school year, 52% of the student body earned degrees in a STEM field. Many academic or multi-major clubs are STEM-dominated, with those students often being the most out-spoken. Many disciplines within the Humanities, including Bioethics, are important and often overlooked.
During my sophomore year, I decided to pursue a minor in Bioethics and Humanities (BH). After taking BH 311: Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, I became incredibly interested in the topic. Pondering age-old ethical questions, trying to decide which action is more moral, seemed fascinating to me.
The Bioethics Department offers a wide range of upper-level electives, with everything from film classes to seminars. In BH Special Electives 497: Bioethics, Film, and Advocacy, we watched films about various topics on our own time and had a subsequent in-depth discussion in class every week. Throughout the quarter, we collaborated in small groups of three or four people to interview members of the community, film, and edit video footage to ultimately make a short film about a topic that we found to be important. Some of the topics people in my class created films about include homelessness, dyslexia, reproductive/sex education in public schools, and complex health insurance terms/inaccessibility of American health insurance (my group).
Several other classes I have taken and deeply enjoyed include BH 497 Special Electives: Racism and Medicine, FAMED (Family Medicine) 550: Critical Race Theory in Medicine, and BH 430: Epidemics and the Politics of Blame: Eugenic and Racial Logics in Shaping U.S. Health Policy. Many BH courses focus on health care disparities and how all of us can be aware of them and work toward improvement and equity. I think this is incredibly valuable and can help broaden everyone’s perspective.
Requirements for the minor include 25 credits total, 15 of which must be 300- or 400-level courses, and 13 of which must come from courses with a BH prefix (within the department). This can be easily completed over the course of four years, and even easily over two years. One year would be doable, save for the fact there are very few upper level BH courses offered each quarter, each with a small number of seats. It is the only undergraduate minor that is through the UW School of Medicine.
In my opinion, everyone should be required to take at least one or two Bioethics courses during their undergraduate career, as it helps people use critical thinking skills and teaches them about important, relevant topics. Most people in my life who have only taken science and general education requirement courses do not have the same understanding of others’ struggles and circumstantial implications, or of the public health consequences of certain policy decisions as those who have taken Bioethics or Public Health classes. Unless they have been directly affected by great social injustices or systemic racism (e.g., in a medical setting), they tend to be completely unaware of the problems at hand. Additionally, I have heard people both imply and directly state that they find subjects like Bioethics to be “useless” and “a lot of unnecessary reading, writing, and discussion.” This is unfortunate because many of the topics covered in the departmental courses are so important for discussions in professional settings and everyday life. It is disheartening to see people underestimate the value of Bioethics as a subject. Obviously, this sentiment is a gross generalization, but has simply been my experience so far.
Personally, I have felt myself grow, mature, and change how I view the world, and the perspective these classes have given me is immeasurable. A mere four years ago, in high school, I was so naïve/ignorant of those around me and their unique life experiences. I would like to think that I am now a more empathetic human being.