Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics

The Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics welcomed Dr. Ruth Berggren as its director in April of 2008. Berggren joined the faculty at the Health Science Center as an associate professor of medicine in 2006. She assumed leadership from Dr. Abraham Verghese.

The Center offers an ambitious curriculum of literature, drama and the visual arts to integrate the humanities into medical education. It uses a formalized, three-pronged strategy emphasizing community service learning as the bridge between ethics education and the development of empathy and humanitarian values in health care providers.

Students Place in National Photo Contest

Taking a break from her work at a free medical clinic near Panama's Colon Island, Gabriela Martínez roamed the clinic with her camera.

An arresting image caught her eye: Wil Johnson, MD, founder of the Global Medical Training group that organized the trip, was charmed by the baby girl of one of his patients and asked if he could hold her. Amid the activity in the clinic, Dr. Johnson paused to take the baby in the crook of his arm, his cheek pressed against her head.

Martínez, then an undergraduate student at The University of Texas at Austin, snapped the photo(above).

"Despite having that language and cultural barrier, there was no barrier to showing compassion and being humane to these people," said Martínez, who recently completed her first year as a medical student at UT Health Science Center San Antonio.

Last month, the photo won second place in the Arnold P. Gold Foundation's "Images of Humanism in Medicine" photo contest. A total of 380 photos were submitted.

Martínez, a self-taught photographer, describes Dr. Johnson as "the type of doctor I want to be. He's passionate about offering free health care to the underserved and teaching students interested in health fields to empower them."

Health Science Center student William Lee received an honorable mention for his entry (left).