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Global Health Humanities bridges the gap between health care and treatment in the medical field. We see there is a strong disconnect between patients, doctors, and nurses when medical treatments are being administered. There is an emotional disconnect between vulnerable patients  and authoritative figures. Without a shared state of vulnerability the medical care at hand isn't being provided to the fullest. This vulnerability is the most human care that can be provided.

When I had my wisdom teeth removed I was placed under laughing gas for the first time, however, I did not laugh. The feeling of being half conscious was incredibly uncomfortable and so I began to panic. But one of the nurses was incredibly kind and began to soothe me. As she soothed me she told me about herself and her job in order to distract me from the discomfort. She held my hand and comforted me while they took away the laughing gas and she stayed with me until she knew I was fully comfortable. When I was in a state of vulnerability she too opened up in order to care for me.

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I believe that healthcare cannot be limited to the field of medicine because its main goal is health and human flourishing. Global Health Humanities introduces a whole new perspective in which people can learn how to offer care to others and how to actually be more humane. There is a difference between care and treatment. One deals with the emotional side and the other just with the medication. None of them can function without the other, but history has shown us that care is the one with the biggest impact. Our well-being is in a strong connection with our health. I would like to offer a personal example. My aunt suffers from an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's Thyroid. If you suffer from this disease, you are required to take a certain medicine for the rest of your life. She didn't want to take the medicine at first because she didn't want to rely on something for the rest of her life, so she asked her doctor for an alternative. Her doctor told her about some natural remedies combined with a healthy lifestyle. He also suggested a trip to a retreat. My aunt was very skeptical at first, but she took up this challenge. After 6 months of taking vitamins, eating without gluten, and doing yoga my aunt still suffers from this disease, but she can live a normal and happy lifestyle. I try to believe that everything in life is about your mindset and how you choose to deal with a problem. This is what Global Health Humanities promote,as well.

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In my mind, the study of Global Health Humanities is a way to bridge the gap between the technical aspects of medicine and the broader social and ethical dimensions of healthcare. The field seeks to foster a humanistic approach to medicine and a deeper understanding of the factors that influence health and illness worldwide.

My mom works on the administrative side of a hospital and manages doctors and healthcare policies for a living. In her zoom meetings over the years I have heard her talking about 'just culture' quite a bit. This is the framework in many hospitals that takes an ethical approach to managing errors and accountability. It recognizes that a punitive approach can deter healthcare workers from reporting errors and learning from them. A just culture in hospitals is rooted in a human-centered approach, acknowledging that healthcare providers are fallible, and errors can occur even in well-intentioned efforts. It encourages open communication, shared learning, and support for healthcare professionals, and encourages their vulnerability. Global health humanities also adopts a human-centered approach by exploring the human experiences that influence health and healthcare. It promotes empathy and understanding among healthcare providers.

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The Global Health Humanities study the aspects of health which are beyond expression in scientific and biological terms. As expressed through literature, movies, stories, and other methods of communication, the discipline of the Global Health Humanities explains the experience of health. Health does not exist in a vacuum of medicine: there are social, economic, psychological, and cultural experiences associated with it. The Global Health Humanities consider the dynamic context of health in an attempt to redefine a field of study that has been traditionally understood with a strictly scientific base.

Engaging in the narrative based communication of illness allows for an understanding of disease beyond the physical body itself. Understanding disease in such a way can be therapeutic for patients since the experience of sickness is often isolating and foreign. In such a context, using Health Humanities allows for the expression of illnesses in a way that resonates with a patient's own.

Furthermore, Health Humanities has application within the education of healthcare providers. The distinction between being a patient and being a human with an illness is often a fine line in the practice of medicine. A patient is often only considered for their biological and not psychological and socio-cultural experiences of being ill. Utilizing the Health Humanities in the education of healthcare providers humanizes the process of medicine and healthcare.

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Global Health and Humanities is a lot deeper than I thought when I was first interested in taking a corse in it. At first I thought it was just combining Health and Humanities in a way where health is affected by different beliefs and emotions. And in a way that is part of the definition. Now that I have read more about it and have a better understanding I believe that Global Health and Humanities is the merging of both science and the humanities rather than a cause and affect relationship. Health is typically though of as a data driven field, dealing with a persons fitness both medically and emotionally, and then accesses the best way to treat or fix any issues. Where as Humanities is to me more concerned about the persons emotions, believes and cultures. Combining both health and humanities means to not only look at a person as their illness, but as a person as well. This type of thinking makes health care more approachable to a larger percentage of people, like those who are afraid of their voices not being heard, those who can not always afford to see a doctor and those with mental health problems that don't want a certain type of treatment. The combination of Global Health and Humanities allows healthcare professionals to gain a broader understanding of their patients needs and emotions towards healthcare.

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Global health humanities (GHH) promotes a holistic approach to healthcare, recognizing that patients have full lives beyond their medical conditions. At its most basic, it recognizes the humanity in people seeking treatment for their ailments. GHH does not seek specifically to teach medical professionals ethics, although it is a happy side effect. Its goal is to help doctors, nurses, social workers, etc. get a complete idea of their patients/clients in order to help the whole person.

An example could be a hospital allowing a recovering person's pets to visit them. Pets are family members for many people, and not seeing them for extended periods of time is detrimental to their mental health. Being able to spend an afternoon with their dog or cat could greatly improve their mood, and help give them the will to get better.

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There is so much to unpack when it comes to global health humanities. It's way more complex than what I would have ever thought. But in simpler terms, global health humanities is the idea of merging science and humanities. It's the idea of looking at science in a way that includes emotions, beliefs, stories, and several more ways. The idea of only using science leaves us a one perspective that neglects all the other factors and oftentimes can lead to a lot of mistakes. For example, in science, doctors need to look at cases in a global health humanities way, they need to consider the stories told in order to make a more accurate diagnosis. Many times, out of pride, doctors reject the patient's words and stories and misdiagnose or provide treatment that wouldn't work for them. There is still so much we have yet to uncover on this topic, and as time goes on, we are seeing this field expand.

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Before, this class I did not really have a concise definition of Global Health Humanities, I applied to this gateway because I just knew it was something that interest me, however, after reading the articles for class, Global Health Humanities for me has become a little clearer as the study of the health of people all around the world through various medias such as essays, interviews, videos, etc. Health being anything dealing with a person’s lifestyle: physically, mentally, and socially. The purpose being to broaden one’s perspectives, especially those in healthcare, by providing numerous perspectives within those essays, interviews, etc., that may come from anywhere in the world, not just focused on the US, or wherever a person may be from. An example of this would be a doctor from the US reading various essays from people around the world about their lifestyles, customs, and cultures, or even a doctor doing a mission overseas and working at things such as field hospitals or regular hospitals aboard.

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Global Health Humanities is difficult to define as I view it as a form of umbrella term. There are a variety of things that can fall under both the term "Health" and "Humanities". I believe that the term "Health" is not confined to medical practices and physical health, but that it also encompasses mental health. Being healthy means a well-rounded state of well-being. Now humanities adds to this by making health practices not only more humane, but also more accessible to people not necessarily into STEM. Taking a  humanistic approach to medicine is important as it makes it more holistic and can help patients feel more at ease as their emotions and humaneness is taken into consideration. They are not simply seen as a patient defined by their illness, but as Arthur Frank says, a person with a story to tell. They are more than their illness.
Furthermore, approaching medicine from a humanities point of view takes more external factors into consideration such as politics (in terms of legality, consent, discrimination, etc.), economics (budgeting, availability of healthcare), and social aspects (mental health, emotions, ethics, equity, equality).

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If I had to put a definition on Global Health Humanities I would define it as; the practice of health care with the genuine need to understand the patients, and get to know their needs before giving them any physical care. While containing the knowledge that this will not only make the patients feel more comfortable but also have better success in treatment. It also includes studying many other fields not just medicine related ones to help be more humane and sympathetic towards your patients and not just treat them like something that needs to be patched up and sent off. The humanities also helps health care professionals to better understand many peoples stories and where they came from. It is also looking at how medicine is right now and how things can be improved in ways that are not always scientific to better patient care and treatment. The advancement of global health humanities is crucial to better health care professionals and give them a better understanding of what is going on and what health care is really like all around the globe.

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If I had to define Global Health Humanities in a single sentence I would say: Global Health Humanities is looking at the history of global health, putting it in context of the current state of global medicine, and pioneering more humane ways (usually involving humanities) to deal with a lot of our current medical crises. The Health Humanities is a study that teaches alternative methods of being a caregiver (in the medical sense of the word) using the tools from the study of humanities. Courses that include sociology and the history of medicine can put the impact of the field and it's history into context for caregivers, and help build compassion and critical thinking for those entering the medical field. Learning how the world works around us, and how it has worked in the past is essential for building empathy and community. It can also be a key aspect of how you choose to care-give as a medical provider. Using art, music or essential oils can be a way you help your patient cope with their illness and studies have shown that they can have certain health benefits (Like music's relation to revitalizing memory in certain lobes of the brain.) But certain foundations of Global Health Humanities can be fundamental in patient treatment. Such as storytelling, and helping your patient find their own voice through enhancing their own narrative, which could help them regain some sense of self. Global Health Humanities is a still relatively new field, but it's an exciting cross-section of medicine and the humanities that's bound to have further pioneering work in the relatively near future.

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The definition of Global Health Humanities

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The definition of Global Health Humanities

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The most important reason I took the global health humanities course was to understand the relationship between humanities and health, and I am learning new things about it!

In my opinion, health humanities is an education that has generated an applied approach to the arts (visual arts, music, performing arts, and humanities) in health care, health, and well-being. So, the humanities form an essential part of global health. For example, physicians are using the storytelling method to understand the diagnosis of their patients and communicate efficiently. I just read in an article that doctors are using art to treat people with schizophrenia. Therefore, we can understand how humanities studies help us get better knowledge of global health and improve the quality of health.

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My definition of global health humanities is that we can put together multiple disciplines to have an understanding of and to improve the quality of health around the world. An example of global health humanities helping the world would be a STEM major hoping to be a doctor taking an ethics, sociology, or a literature/writing class in school in order to be a more well-rounded individual who is able to treat their patients better. In terms of people who don't intend to be directly in contact with patients, such as myself, it means to be able to provide myself and others with a more realistic insight into what problems in the world need to be solved and what we can do about them. It will likely involve critical thinking, analysis, and problem solving skills in order to succeed in GHH in addition to an outlet to help you spread a message when you feel that a certain topic is important, such as writing.