Amid COVID-19 pandemic, History of Western Medicine sequence approved

Update | Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Columbus State’s History of Western Medicine course sequence (HIST 2715 and HIST 2716) has been approved as Ohio Transfer Module matches for Arts & Humanities. 

In 2017, Columbus State received a grant from the NEH-Humanities Initiatives at Community Colleges project. The grant was designed to fund the development and piloting of new courses in the History of Western Medicine. As subject matter experts, Humanities faculty members Benjamin Pugno and Dea Boster, created this two-course sequence and its written materials. It provides perspectives on medical practices and ideas about health, bodies, and disease in the Western world from antiquity to the present.

The History of Western Medicine sequence includes two non-consecutive, three-credit courses that fulfill a general education historical study requirement at Columbus State.  HIST 2715 focuses on the history of western medicine up to 1700, and HIST 2716 covers the period since 1700. Both courses include new traditional and digitized learning objects, including open educational resource textbooks, which became available in 2020.

The major themes, oriented around changing roles and definitions of practitioners, include social and cultural constructions of disease classifications, epidemiology, medical/sanitation practices, and intersections with race, social class, religion, morality, and gender. Columbus State is the first community college to offer a survey-level history of medicine course sequence. The department is proud to now be recognized by the Ohio Transfer Module for other institutions in Ohio, particularly in this current period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

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