Multicultural/Global Health Care Minor

The Minor in Multicultural/Global Health Care is designed to be experientially based, while also recognizing that an understanding of the complex issues of health and healthcare in a variety of cultures requires an interdisciplinary approach. This Minor includes a faculty-mentored observational field experience in the United States or abroad.  Outcomes will improve the appropriateness of healthcare and benefit both the client and the healthcare practitioner.

Plan of Study:

Six courses will be required to be taken for a grade: three courses in the School of Nursing and three additional courses from other disciplines that give students flexibility in course selection. The nursing courses are also open to graduate students, who will have additional assignments to meet the requirements for a 500 level course. These courses can be used to fulfill sector requirements within the School of Nursing.

The two foundational courses offered through the School of Nursing that are required of all students taking the Minor are: a didactic and an experiential course. The didactic course is NURS 315 Sociocultural Influences on Health. The experiential course is a faculty-mentored observational field experience that can include one of several options: any of Penn’s study abroad programs under NURS 535 Comparing Health Care Systems in an Intercultural Context: Study Abroad; or NURS 545 Maternal and Infant Care in the Americas; or nursing clinical courses (per approval) if students negotiate a clinical site in NURS 106 or NURS 341 with a culturally diverse or international population (e.g. Botswana).

Four other electives are required, at least one of which must be a nursing course. These may include any of the above experiential courses that the student has not yet taken, or others listed below.

The last three courses are taken in other departments/schools and can be part of the sector requirements in Society and Social Structures, Histories and Traditions, Arts and Letters, and Global and Cultural Studies.  These may include advanced language courses beyond basic language requirements, and those in African/Africana Studies, Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Asian American Studies, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Folklore, Health and Societies, Latin American and Latino Studies, Italian, Russian, Jewish Studies, Germanic Languages, Political Science, Linguistics, Religious Studies, Urban Studies, Communication, Health Care Systems, Women’s Studies, and History.

Approved Nursing Courses: 

NURS 106 – Concepts in Nursing, Healthy Lifestyles II (Spring Course)
NURS 134 – Health and Social Policy (Spring Course)
NURS 315 – Sociocultural Influences on Health (Fall Course)
NURS 316/516 – International Nutrition: Political Economy of World Hunger (Spring Course)
NURS 317 - Migration and Health
NURS 318 – Race, Gender, Class and the History of American Health Care (Fall Course)
NURS 341 – Nursing in Community – Clinical (with a culturally diverse or international population, e.g. Botswana) (Summer and Fall Course)
NURS 518 - Nursing and the Gendering of Health Care in the United States and Internationally, 1860-2000
NURS 535 – Comparing Health Care Systems in an Intercultural Context: Study Abroad (Hong Kong and Thailand) (Spring Course)
NURS 545 – Maternal and Infant Care in the Americas (Spring Course)
PUBH 519 – Introduction to Global Health (Fall Course)

For more information, contact:

Barbra Mann Wall, PhD, RN
Associate Professor;
Associate Director of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing
215-746-8321
wallbm@nursing.upenn.edu

Global Health Care Track
Dr. Marjorie Muecke
Assistant Dean for Global Health Affairs;
Associate Director, WHO Collaborating Center for Nursing & Midwifery Leadership; Adjunct Professor Nursing, Paul G Rogers Ambassador for Global Health Research
215-573-3050
muecke@nursing.upenn.edu

Multicultual Care Track
Barbra Mann Wall, PhD, RN
Associate Professor;
Associate Director of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing
215-746-8321
wallbm@nursing.upenn.edu