Educational Offerings

There is an educational component to all Gesundheit projects—the books, movies, lectures, clowning, global outreach, the model hospital project. In addition, Gesundheit hosts events focused on education—at the site of the future hospital and elsewhere—in the form of medical student electives, summer institutes, health care system design intensives, and conferences.

Medical Elective

The John M. Stang Medical Student Elective is a four-week elective in humanistic medicine: constructing your humanism. All interested stake-holders in health care are invited: pre-med students, medical students, nursing students, activists, scholars. Elective credit can be arranged. The next elective takes place on the Gesundheit! land in West Virginia, Sept 29–Oct 23, 2009. Read more and apply

Health Care System Design Intensive

These working conferences are for those people who feel that the current medical system is undesirable, and who want time, tools, and new ideas to figure out "what next?" Anyone with a stake in health care is welcome to participate. The aim is to seed designs of a variety of local projects that move health care away from the corporate-business context into models of compassion and service. Along with speaker presentations, there are teaching sessions and small work groups. Read about the next intensive

The School for Designing a Society: Summer Session

The School for Designing a Society, based in Illinois, is a sister organization to the Gesundheit! Institute that offers a condensed, three-week summer session of its "education in wanting, not just knowing" on the land in West Virgina.
Read more about the summer session
Read more about the School for Designing a Society

Health Care Justice Gathering

Co-sponsored by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) and the Gesundheit! Institute, these gatherings takes place in January on the land in West Virginia and emphasize compassion and social justice in medicine, with presentations by such guests as Paul Glover and Lanny Smith MD, as well as Patch Adams MD, John Glick MD, and Susan Parenti DMA.