Welcome to Integrated Health Studies
Integrated Health Studies (IHS) provides a liberal arts foundation in humanities, social sciences, and scientific reasoning with opportunities for integrated learning and individual application in a capstone experience. This secondary major helps promote and significantly strengthen pre-health programs.
Students who plan on a career in health care know that they need to gain a strong science foundation for their professional programs. Equally important is knowledge of the social context of health and skills for navigating the multi-dimensional nature of health problems and, in the future, good patient-centered health care practitioners.
Program Administrator The (IHS) secondary major is appropriate for any student who wants to work in health care and is on a traditional pre-health track.
This program is also appropriate for students who are interested in related careers. For example, a student who selects a major in social work and who wants to work in a hospital will develop ethical and scientific reasoning skills necessary for solving complex individual and societal health problems. Biomedical engineering can also be paired with IHS as a way to combine the analytical skills associated with engineering with the ethical and interpersonal skills of IHS. IHS is a way to explore passions related to science, people, and ethics alongside any major of choosing.
Integrated Health Studies is intended to supplement primary major requirements to provide students with a foundation in:
- Interpersonal skills grounded in humanistic and social scientific understanding of health.
- Ethical and scientific reasoning skills necessary for solving complex individual and societal health problems.
- Multicultural competence critical for dealing with diverse patient populations in the U.S.
- Integrated learning culminating in a capstone experience.