Effective healthcare practitioners go beyond basic science. They also bring perspectives from the social sciences and humanities into their work. This minor prepares you for a career in medicine, dentistry or several other healthcare disciplines.
Why Minor in Medicine and Healthcare at Clarkson?
If you pursue a career in healthcare, you quickly learn that the technical parts of your job are just the start. This minor helps you build the knowledge and perspectives to get a 360-degree view of your chosen field.
That means taking advanced classes in biology, biomedical engineering and psychology, to name a few. But, you also get to work with anthropologists, historians, sociologists and political scientists to experience a fuller picture of healthcare in the United States.
By the time you graduate, you are prepared to take entrance exams used for admittance to graduate programs. (The MCAT may require a few additional courses, which you can discuss with your Pre-Healthcare Advisor). You also develop a perspective that takes some practitioners years to acquire — and one your future clients and patients will appreciate.
Curriculum
Complete 25 credit hours to receive credit for this minor: six required courses and healthcare-related electives focus on biomedical science and engineering, the social sciences and the humanities.
Courses cover topics including:
Anatomy and physiology
Bioinformatics
Healthcare policy
History of medicine
Human sexuality
Medical ethics
Neuroscience and society
Women, gender and science
Review the full curriculum below.
The medicine and healthcare minor gets you out of the classroom and into the field. To complete all requirements, you must spend at least 50 hours working in a professional setting involving interactions with both health professionals and clients or patients.
In the past, Clarkson students have worked in hospitals and clinics and served as EMTs, first responders or athletic trainers.
Get a no-holds-barred look at a range of healthcare professions from those who know the best: the people working in them. In the Medicine & Healthcare Profession Seminar, prepare to discuss potential career paths and roles with guest speakers. Learn how they got into their fields, the challenges and opportunities they see ahead and where you might fit in.
The medicine and healthcare minor fulfills most of your Clarkson Common Experience requirements. It does not fulfill all course requirements for students in certain advising tracks, though. (Pre-med students, for example, must take additional biology, chemistry and physics courses.)
The medicine and healthcare minor illuminates some of the choices you could face in the field. Our pre-health advising tracks ensure you're taking the right classes to reach your goals. Once you select a track, work closely with an advisor to build a plan leading to graduate work.
Some available advising tracks include:
Occupational Therapy (feeds into Clarkson's OT Program)
Physician Assistant Studies (feeds into Clarkson's PA Program)
Physical Therapy (feeds into Clarkson's PT Program)
Pre-dental
Pre-medical
Pre-pharmacy
Pre-public health
Pre-optometry
Pre-veterinarian
A minor in medicine and healthcare is available to students in all degree programs. To obtain a minor, students must complete 25 credit hours:
Required courses (13 credit hours):
BY160 Cellular and Molecular Biology
BY162 Cellular and Molecular Biology Lab (2 credits)
BY471 Anatomy and Physiology I
PY 151 Introduction to Psychology
HS220 Medicine & Healthcare Profession Seminar (1 credit)
HS405 Experiential Learning in Healthcare (1 credit)
HS220 Medicine & Healthcare Profession Seminar
This course is organized by the Career Center with the assistance of the Pre-Health Advising Coordinator and in consultation with the Clarkson Health Professions Committee Chair. It meets semi-weekly and uses a seminar format to bring in human health professionals from a diversity of fields to discuss their professions, including what their professions encompass, the academic and experiential tracks they followed to become medical professionals, their perspectives on the future directions of their fields and opportunities for Clarkson students to pursue these fields. It also brings representatives from different professional schools to discuss admission, expenses and career opportunities.
HS405 Experiential Learning in Medicine & Healthcare
To complete the minor, a student is required to accumulate at least 50 hours of work in a health professional setting. The work must include some form of interaction with health professionals and with patients or analogous health-service recipients. Examples include healthcare internships or volunteer positions at a hospital or clinic, completion of HS210 Health Coaches II or serving as an EMT, emergency first responder or athletic trainer. Conducting research with medical applications that do not involve working with patients/health-service recipients does not meet the requirements for this course.
In order to satisfy this requirement, the student must enroll in HS405 Experiential Learning in Medicine & Healthcare and, by the end of the relevant semester, have submitted evidence of the work experience hours completed, along with a short (around two pages) self-reflective essay. The essay should describe what the student did and learned during the experience and how the experience has affected the student’s professional goals and preparation. It is not necessary to enroll in HS405 prior to the work experience, and indeed it is often more practical for students to enroll in HS405 at some point after they have completed the necessary hours.
Medicine and Healthcare Electives
Electives (12 credit hours) include at least three credit hours from each of the four categories:
Category 1: Biomedical Science and Engineering
BR200 Intro to Biomedical & Rehabilitation Engineering
CM305 Biochemistry for Health Science or CM460 Biochemistry 1
BY 380 Techniques in Immunological Research
BY416 Principals of Toxicology & Epidemiology
BY419 Immunology
BY440 Introduction to Biomedical Rehabilitation Engineering & Science
BY448 Medical Microbiology
BY452 Pharmacology
BY472 Anatomy and Physiology II
BY473 Anatomy and Physiology I Lab (2 credits)
BY474 Anatomy and Physiology II Lab (2 credits)
BY476 Current Topics in Biology & Medicine
BY480 Advanced Cell Biology
BY485 Neural Engineering
BY488 Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine
Category 2: Health Psychology & Social Sciences
HS200 Health Coaches 1 [2 credits]
HS210 Health Coaches 2 [2 credits]
SS221 Introduction to Sexuality
ANTH 238 Men and Masculinities
PY268 Diversity Science
SOC320 Medical Sociology
SOC330 Health, Wealth, Inequality and the Environment
PY372 Community Psychology
PY461 Judgment and Decision Making or PY363 Judgment and Decision Making for the Biomedical Sciences
PY462 Abnormal Psychology
PY463 Health Psychology
Category 3: Medical Humanities
HIST 230 Science and Society
HIST 270 Introduction to Society, Culture & Biology
HIST 331 Ancient Medicine and Magic
HIST 321 History of Public Health in America
HIST 333 Science, Technology and Society in the Renaissance
HIST 335 History of Medicine in Europe and North America
HIST 338 Women, Gender and Science in American History
HIST 459 Neuroscience & Society
Category 4: Medical Ethics
BIE400 Responsible Conduct of Research
BIE410 Biomedical Ethics
PHIL241 Medical Ethics
POL380 The Law and Bioethics
I traveled to Vietnam my freshman year with Doctors Without Borders. This was an incredible experience, as it allowed me to see similarities and differences to our own healthcare system. As a future healthcare professional, having knowledge of other cultures’ healthcare systems will allow me to treat patients more holistically. I have learned about different cultures’ healthcare systems, how to triage, suture, new medical conditions during our condition of the week and current events in healthcare.
Brandon Formoza '22 BS in Biochemistry with a minor in medicine and healthcare
The minor in medicine and healthcare at Clarkson gives you a 360-degree view of the field — and makes you a better practitioner before you even start your career. Find out more today.
