This tradition of excellence in scholarship and teaching continues with the current faculty which includes:

STANDING:
John E. Neely, MD
Interim Chair and Professor, Departments of Humanities and Pediatrics

Cheryl A. Dellasega, Ph.D., G.N.P.
Professor of Humanities

Anne Hunsaker Hawkins, Ph.D.
Professor of Humanities

Michael J. Green, M.D., M.S.
Professor of Humanities and Medicine

Benjamin H. Levi, M.D. Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Humanities and Pediatrics

Kimberly R. Myers, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Humanities and English

Philip K. Wilson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Humanities and Science, Technology & Society

JOINT:
J.O. Ballard, M.D.
Professor of Medicine, Pathology and Humanities and the Jane W. & Lawrence F. Kienle Chair for Humane Medicine

George F. Blackall, Psy.D., M.B.A.
Associate Professor of Pediatrics,  Humanities and Neural & Behavioral Sciences

Ronald E. Domen, M.D.
Professor, Departments of Pathology, Medicine and Humanities
Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education

Judith E. Hupcey, Ed.D., CRNP
Associate Professor of Nursing at the Penn State University in the College of Health and Human Development and Assistant Professor of Humanities at the Penn State College of Medicine

Jonathan H. Marks, M.A., B.C.L.
Associate Professor of Bioethics, Humanities and Law

Janice Penrod, Ph.D. 
Assistant Professor of Nursing at the Penn State University in the College of Health and Human Development and Assistant Professor of Humanities at the Penn State College of Medicine

Nancy Tuana, Ph.D.
Dupont Class of 1949 Professor in Ethics; Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the Penn State University College of the Liberal Arts and Professor of Humanities at the Penn State College of Medicine

EMERITUS:
K. Danner Clouser, Ph.D. (1930-2000)
University Professor Emeritus

David J. Hufford, Ph.D.
University Professor Emeritus

E.A. Vastyan
University Professor Emeritus

ADJUNCT:
Robert Jones, D.Ed.

VISITING FACULTY:
Martha Peaslee Levine, M.D.
Director, Intensive Outpatient Program
and Partial Hospitalization Program
Division of Adolescent Medicine and Eating Disorders
Penn State/Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

VISITING PROFESSOR:
Elizabeth Crowe-Joong, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities

The faculty of the Department of Humanities have traditionally represented the disciplines of history, literature, philosophy, ethics, religion and the culture of health practices. The methodologies of these disciplines are complementary to those of the biomedical sciences--different, but equally valid and useful for medicine. Their content permeates the work of the practicing physician. By focusing on issues and questions raised by and within medicine, humanities teaching aims to help physicians-in-training develop the following attitudes and capabilities:

1. critical awareness of underlying values and assumptions of the biomedical sciences;
2. competence in moral reasoning;
3. empathy for the patient’s experience of illness and health care;
4. awareness of the social, political, and cultural contexts of illness and health care;
5. awareness of the values and beliefs that shape the physician’s goals, motivations and behaviors;
6. a self-perpetuating intellectual curiosity, flexibility of perspective and non-dogmatism.

Humanities faculty members participate fully in the academic administrative life of the medical center. Each interviews medical school applicants and serves on at least one college and/or health system committee, including representation on the institutional ethics and IRB committees. Drs. Green and Levi provide leadership for the ethics case conferences organized by the medical and surgical intensive care units.

Beginning with the contributions of the founding faculty and continuing to the present, the department has made major contributions in several areas. We pioneered the concept of a humanities curriculum fully integrated into the structure of medical education, and the implementation of a curriculum that has served as the model for many other medical schools. In addition, we provided leadership nationally in the development of the medical humanities as a scholarly discipline which is now represented in most medical schools. Professor. E.A. Vastyan, the Department’s first chairman, was a founder of the Society for Health and Human Values, the predecessor of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. Vastyan and two previous department faculty, K. Danner Clouser and Joanne Trautmann Banks, have been recipients of the Society’s prestigious Annual Award for their contributions to the field. In 1997, David Barnard received a Certificate of Recognition for Leadership and Service from the Society. Both Vastyan and the department’s most recent chairman, Professor David Barnard, served as President of the Society for Health and Human Values. Clouser and Banks were also instrumental in the establishment of leading scholarly publications in the medical humanities. Clouser was a charter member of the editorial board of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, and Associate Editor of the standard reference work in bioethics, The Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Banks was founding editor of Literature and Medicine.

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