Spring 2027

Race, Science, and Medicine: Past and Present

Examines race and ethnicity in the history of Western medicine and science.

offering recorded2 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify and analyze within their social, cultural and economic contexts key historical issues, and their significance, in the history of the idea of race as it relates to scientific and medical developments.

  • Develop an understanding of the mutually shaping interactions between ideas about race and perceptions of social hierarchy, health, illness and medical and anthropological categories.

  • Understand how conceptions of race have influenced the medical and nursing professions, as well as medical institutions.

  • Analyze the role of social factors like gender and class, among others, in shaping cultural realities related to race and body normativity.

  • Identify the role that scientists, physicians, patients, healthcare providers, scientific institutions and the state play in modeling, ideas about race.

  • Discern the impact of programs of global science as they intersect with international politics in the shaping of ideas about human rights, ethnicity, and race.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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letter grades

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Prerequisites

Course map

MED SC-M 810, 811, 812, and 813

MEDHIST 746

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Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

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Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 007Online Only0 / 250

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

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Student experience

the class

Examine ideas about race and ethnicity and their relationship to the history of "Western" medicine and science. Analyze the role of social, economic, cultural, and political developments in the shaping of scientific and medical notions of race and bodily difference. Study how skin color (and other elements of "racial identity") has influenced the experiences of patients and populations, physicians and nurses, and medical researchers. Discuss how conceptions of race have shaped both the health concerns and health outcomes of Americans in the past three hundred years, and the structure of medical institutions in the United States. Topics include the origins of racial classification, race and colonialism, the health and medical care of the enslaved, the use of enslaved people as research subjects, the history of racial disparities in medicine, structural racism of the medical establishment, race and reproduction, and the struggle for justice in health care during the past few decades.

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Origins of racial classification
  • Race and colonialism
  • Health and medical care of the enslaved
  • Use of enslaved people as research subjects
  • History of racial disparities in medicine
  • Structural racism of the medical establishment
  • Race and reproduction
  • Struggle for justice in health care during the past few decades

Skills

  • Historical contextual analysis of race-related scientific and medical issues.
  • Analysis of mutual shaping between ideas about race and social hierarchy, health, illness, and medical or anthropological categories.
  • Interpretation of how racial conceptions influence medical and nursing professions and institutions.
  • Intersectional analysis of gender, class, and other social factors in race and body normativity.
  • Identification of roles played by scientists, physicians, patients, providers, institutions, and the state in shaping ideas about race.
  • Critical assessment of global science programs, international politics, human rights, ethnicity, and race.

Grades

Instructor

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Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

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Selected offering source records
MEDHIST 746 · Spring 2027

Race, Science, and Medicine: Past and Present

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:452:026142",
    "course_id": "MEDHIST 746",
    "course_uid": "course_8e9959c2dbbd34bff84f68ab",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "026142",
    "source_subject_id": "452",
    "title": "Race, Science, and Medicine: Past and Present",
    "credits_min": 2,
    "credits_max": 2,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "47944140d5ec920101a6fdd0e770fa86e456e58600a5f11526e1babe6221698b",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}