The Center's vision is to develop a unique program that will make a significant difference in the quality of medical education in the United States. The program emphasizes ethics and professionalism and encourages community service learning in clinics around San Antonio, in the colonias of Laredo and Corpus Christi and in missions abroad, where medical students experience medicine as it is practiced in resource-poor environments.

The Center works to assure that students are knowledgeable about the principles of medical ethics related to their professional activities. They are expected to be able to identify, analyze and resolve moral conflicts that arise in the care of a patient. The program helps heighten students' sensitivity to the patient's experience and preserve their innate empathy.

The Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics provides an innovative program that makes a significant difference in the quality of medical education in the United States. The program emphasizes ethics and professionalism education and encourages community service learning in and around San Antonio, in South Texas, and in missions abroad, where students experience health care as it is practiced in resource-limited environments.

The Center works to assure that students are both knowledgeable about the principles of health care ethics related to their professional activities and also remain sensitive to the patient's experience. Through varied classroom and field activities, students learn to identify, analyze and resolve moral conflicts that arise in the care of a patient while preserving the innate empathy that initially attracted our students to the healing professions.

By nurturing empathy and humanitarian values while learning practical skills, they fulfill the Center's vision: to prepare tomorrow's healers to act with compassion and justice.

They fulfill their mission to educate medical students and health professionals in ethics and professionalism while nurturing empathy and humanitarian values by:

• -Preparing students to identify, analyze and resolve moral conflicts in patient care and medical research;
• -Deepening the attentiveness to patients that will persist throughout students' careers through exposure to excellent clinical role modeling, arts and letters; and
• -Providing a distinguished interdisciplinary community service learning program that serves as a bridge between ethics education and the development of empathy and humanitarian values.

The Center focuses on four key areas:  Medical Ethics and Professionalism, Literature and Art, Community Service Learning, and Global Health