Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Medical humanities
- Creators: Department of English
encounter in the medical world. The concept for this paper originates from the idea of narrative
medicine as a way to foster relationships between physicians and patients through the sharing of
stories, or narratives, between the two parties. In efforts to help teach this skill, universities and
medical schools have begun to offer courses in the medical humanities. The goal of these courses
is to teach students how to develop the skills they need to empathize and learn from their
patients’ experiences. Paired with the traditional rigor of a science-based curriculum, the medical
humanities have become part of medical schools’ efforts to “train the whole physician.”
Medical poetry is an example of the types of humanities courses that can benefit students
interested in medicine. The history of medical poetry spans across decades of literary history.
Beginning with the early references of medicine from the ancient world to the contemporary
work of the present, poets of different backgrounds and histories are discussed. Research to
support the efficacy of medical poetry include studies done on how medical poetry has impacted
students, readers, and patients. Finally, the author’s experiences as both a pre-professional
student and patient are shared to further explore the benefits that reading, and writing can bring.
Our thesis project is a 5-person group thesis that was created over the span of two years. In the summer of 2020, at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, our group first met and discussed our shared interests in mask-wearing and individual factors that we each thought had significant impacts on mask-wearing among Barrett students. We each decided on factors that we wanted to investigate and subsequently split into three main groups based on our interests: culture and geography, medical humanities, and medical and psychological conditions. Despite these different interests, we continued to treat our thesis as a five-person project rather than three different projects. We then constructed a survey, followed by several focus group sessions and interview questions to ask Honors students. In January 2021, we received approval from the IRB for our project, and we quickly finalized our survey, focus group and interview questions. In February 2021, we sent out our survey via the Barrett Digest, which we kept open for approximately one month. We also sent out advertisements for our survey via social media platforms such as Twitter and Discord. Following completion of the survey, we contacted all of the respondents who stated that they were interested in participating in focus groups and interviews. Focus groups and interviews were conducted in March and April 2021, and results were analyzed and correlated to our individual subtopics. Each of the focus group and interview participants received $50 each, and three randomly-selected students who completed the survey received $25 each. From April 2021 until April 2022, we analyzed our results, came to conclusions based on our initial topics of interest, and constructed our paper.