Inspiring high school students to engage with current issues in science and medicine with an interdisciplinary course entitled science and literature of disease

Abstract

This paper describes a new interdisciplinary course entitled Science and Literature of Disease offered since 2015 for second-semester high school seniors at Polytechnic School, a college-preparatory school in Pasadena, CA. The course is taught by a physician and an English teacher who initiated this course to inspire the students to identify, understand, and analyze timely issues in science and medicine. Each year, approximately 15–20 students enroll and obtain credit for a science elective and AP English Literature. Students also receive credit toward receiving a Global Initiatives Certificate from Polytechnic School's Global Initiative Program (GIP). The course is student-driven and incorporates timely issues in science and disease identified by the instructors and students. Students respond positively to the course. Medical topics include the plague, tuberculosis, malaria, cancer, and AIDS. Students read Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor, Leo Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich, Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, On Doctoring edited by Reynolds and Stone, Cameron Conway's Malaria Poems, Somerset Maugham's Sanatorium, and excerpts from Boccaccio's Decameron. Key lessons learned are presented. Feedback from the students seems to indicate that this environment fosters a sense that the students cherish the course and the contributions of their peers, and reasons are discussed.