The Program in Society and Medicine
of the
University of Michigan Medical Center
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Michigan and Worldwide Ethics and Humanities Resources
The Program in Society and Medicine (PSM) is charged with
identifying faculty throughout the University of Michigan interested in ethics, the humanities, and social sciences relevant to health care,
encouraging education in these areas, and
facilitating research.
Research questions are generally concerned with the social context of health care. Often, these questions require the use of analytical techniques drawn not from the natural sciences, which have dominated the academic study of health care since the early twentieth century, but from the humanities and the social sciences, fields that are increasingly recognized as central to the mission of health care.
Over the past three years, over 140 people have identified themselves with the PSM. Most of these people are affiliated with University of Michigan. They teach and study the relationships between health care and society from a wide range of non-biological perspectives, working with an extensive range of approaches and methodologies. Affiliations include the Medical School (medical students and faculty members from the Departments of Family Practice, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Otolaryngology, Pathology, Pediatrics, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Physiology, Psychiatry, and Surgery); the U-M Hospitals; the Schools of Public Health, Nursing, and Social Work; the College of LS&A (American Culture, Anthropology, Classics, English Literature, History, History of Art, Philosophy and Sociology); the Law School; the Bentley Historical Library; the Institute of Gerontology; and UM-Dearborn. Other participants come from Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and the non-academic community.
External funding is provided by the Lyle C. Roll Memorial Fund, the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, and Little, Brown and Company.
PSM may be contacted via:
Snail Mail: 6312 Medical Science Building I, Box 0604, Ann Arbor, MI 48109,
Phone (747-0571),
or Fax (747-3301).