Humanities for Pre-Med Students

Below is Constellations’ webinar on writing humanities research papers created for students interested in fulfilling the intensive writing expectation of the UW School of Medicine. All Constellations classes are designed to help students meet these requirements.


Increasingly premedical requirements for Medical Schools across the country—including the University of Wisconsin’s Medical School—include the humanities. The UW School of Medicine and Public Health requires that students applying to the MD program demonstrate strong written communication skills by taking a writing-intensive course in the humanities or social sciences.

DISCLAIMER: Please ignore the paper-specific information in the video below due to changes in requirements.

The video below was made when the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) required applicants to write and submit a humanities paper.  This is no longer the case.  However, the rest of the content in the video will help pre-med and STEM students write quality humanities papers for their classes!  

All Constellations courses are “writing intensive courses,” as defined by the UW SMPH, and satisfy the UW SMPH pre-med humanities writing requirement.  Students need only to follow their Constellations course’s syllabus to meet this requirement.

For inquiries, please contact Constellations Assistant Director, Andrea Samz-Pustol (samzpustol@wisc.edu).

DISCLAIMER: Please ignore the paper-specific information in the video due to changes in requirements.

This video was created by our talented Mellon-Morgridge Fellows in the Humanities. Each year our program provides funding for exceptional humanities graduate students to pursue their research, support our Mellon-Morgridge Humanities Professors in their work, and develop our program.

Iseult Gillespiewas a Mellon-Morgridge Fellow with the Planetary Humanities Constellation from 2018-2020. She received her PhD in English in 2022. She is an editorial producer for education and entertainment bodies including Endeavor Streaming, TED, and PBS, where she creates educational content for public audiences.

Caroline Hensleyis a PhD student in the English Department. As an MMF, she supported Dr. Jenell Johnson’s Health & Inequality Constellation. She researched and compiled bibliographic material for two chapters of Dr. Johnson’s current book project, On Behalf of Life, about indigenous conceptions of life and metaphors of invasion and colonization utilized by planetary protection agencies in preparing for increased outer-space travel. She also helped organize multiple events for Constellations, including a public talk and graphic medicine workshop with MK Czerwiec.