Medicine and Humanities Program

Today, medical humanities departments are flourishing in universities around the world. An interdisciplinary reflection is underway, building a new knowledge on medicine within the framework of the social sciences. This knowledge is made available to practitioners, with a view to a modern medicine that is more aware of its approaches and more attentive to the condition of patients.  

Anchored at the crossroads of Science and Literature, the ENS is at the forefront of interdisciplinary research. It is therefore an ideal setting for the Medicine and Humanities program. 

The Medicine and Humanities program, directed by Emmanuel Didier, is a program of Ecole normale supérieure open to medical student who wish to complete their professional training with an adapted curriculum at the highest level in the Humanities. It is a program of excellence where students can relate the general principles of the humanities to the most novel questions raised by the knowledge and practices of medicine.  

Each year, 5 medical students are recruited at the end of a competitive examination and join a Literature department of the ENS. Students receive a scholarship of €1,000 per month for 3 years, in addition to a housing opportunity granted by the ENS.  The three years of the Medicine-Humanities program allow students to obtain, in parallel with medical studies, a Master's degree in Humanities and the Diploma of ENS.  

The ambition of this project is to train doctors who are more attentive to the human and social problems inherent in medicine, concerned with the ethical, social and economic problems that this discipline raises.