Why join the course?
This new module, Imagining the Other: Death, Bereavement and Loss, is the second stage in the successful collaboration between Birkbeck, University of London and St George’s, University of London, in which medical humanities is taught to a joint cohort of students from the School of Arts (Birkbeck) and science and healthcare students from St George’s." For external students joining the module, it is an exciting opportunity for transdisciplinary learning.
Audience
Clinical staff, including nurses, allied health professionals and medical staff. The module is offered at both Level 6 and Level 7, entry admission requirements will be vary depending on the level applied for.
Course Description
Loss, death and bereavement are three of the most extreme and difficult experiences anyone faces. For doctors and other health and social care workers these complex phenomena must be confronted on an almost daily basis. This has seldom been more true than in 2020 when the Covid 19 pandemic has asked so much of health and social care workers worldwide and left many people personally bereaved.
While the events of 2020 have brought loss, bereavement and death closer to home, it has also seen a surge in book buying and reading. There is and always has been a rich literature addressing the perennially important issues of death, loss and bereavement across time and across cultures. How does it feel to face your own death, and what drives people to chronicle this experience in writing? What can reading such works tell us about the human urge to communicate, and to leave a record of oneself behind? For those facing the loss of a loved one, how can life go on after death, and can anything positive emerge from this? Can there be humour in death, and how and why does loss sometimes lead to renewed creativity?
This module uses textual representations of loss, death and bereavement to explore these key issues. We will examine how far reading literature can help us understand the experiences of others i.e., to what extent and in what way can any of us “imagine the other”. The following content will be covered:
- Death and Bereavement: an introduction
- The Process of Dying
- Death as a Rite of Passage
- Doctors and Death
- Pandemics and the differences they make
- Loss and Recovery
If you take the course you will:
- Develop a complex understanding of experiences of loss, death and bereavement, as well as the positive potential of recovery.
- To help prepare students for their future lives and careers by enhancing the imaginative understanding of others in crisis, including compassion and empathy.
Teaching
The module will start on 6 November and run for six weeks. Teaching will take place online on a Monday evening from 6.30pm to 8.30pm and will be taught by both St George's and Birkbeck staff. See the full module outline HERE.
Assessment
1000 words of reflective writing (0%) and a 3000-word essay (100%).
Certification
You will be provided a university transcript upon successful completion of the Level 6 or Level 7, 15 credit module.
Past students have said...
“I really enjoyed this course and I felt it went beyond what I was expecting.”
“I felt that I gained a great deal from this course and that it was a great experience that I would wholly recommend to others.”
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