Professional Electives Search
This search tool is designed to help you identify professional electives that may align with your interests. You can search by any/all of the fields provided. This tool is not intended as an exhaustive list of all possible professional electives; rather, it includes electives offered through the college of pharmacy, professional electives approved by the Curriculum and Assessment Committee, and electives that have been taken by students at some of the other schools on campus. Term offered is only provided for College of Pharmacy courses; a link to the appropriate course guide is provided for all other courses.
As a reminder, graduate courses (>500 level) that are relevant to biomedical, human health, and/or the practice of pharmacy which are offered through the U-M health-science schools (Pharmacy, Nursing, Social Work, Public Health, Medicine, and Dentistry) qualify as professional electives provided they are not attendance-only courses. Attendance-only courses offered through the health-science schools (e.g., seminars or journal clubs that do not require a rigorous form of student assessment) are not accepted for professional elective credit. Courses offered through U-M non-health-science schools must be reviewed and approved by the Curriculum and Assessment Committee.
Topics in Disability Studies (Credits: 1-3)
An interdisciplinary approach to disability studies, including focus on the arts and humanities, natural and social sciences, and professional schools. Some topics include history and culture representation of disability, advocacy, health, rehabilitation, built environment, independent living, public policy. Team taught with visiting speakers. Accessible classroom with real-time captioning.
Prerequisites: Please view the course schedule for current advisory and/or enforced prerequisites.Behavioral, Psychosocial and Ecological Aspects of Health, Mental Health and Disease (Credits: 3)
This course will survey the distribution, determinants, and biomedical, psychological and behavioral aspects of health inclusive of physical, mental and behavioral health and disease across the life span from pre-birth to death. Social, economic, environmental, structural and cultural variations in and determinants of health, disease, and quality of life will be addressed, including the influence of factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, geography, ability, biological, genetic and epigenetic factors. Barriers to access and utilization, geopolitical influences, environmental justice, social injustice, oppression and racism, historical trends, and future directions will be reviewed. Health beliefs and models of health behavior (e.g. Health Belief Model,Theory of Planned Behavior), and structural determinants of health (e.g. Minority Stress Theory) will be presented, including help-seeking and utilization of health services. Stress, allostatic load, coping and social support, adaptation to chronic illness, the influences of privilege, stigma and discrimination, quality of life, and death and dying will also be covered.
Prerequisites: Please view the course schedule for current advisory and/or enforced prerequisites.Mental Health Disorders in Adulthood (Credits: 3)
This interprofessional course is open to student learners in the health science areas including social work, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry. This course will present state-of-the-art knowledge
and research of mental disorders of adults across the lifespan, as well as factors that promote mental health, and prevent mental disorders and substance related problems. Using a clinical case discussion format, this class will highlight mental health diagnoses, comorbidity, and team collaboration across health professions. Social determinants of health/mental health will be used as an organizing framework for discussing the impact of factors associated with health and mental health across diverse cultures, groups and populations. Classification systems of adult mental functioning and mental disorders will be presented, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition (DSM-5) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9/10). Ethical considerations regarding the development and application of classifications will be explored in addition to critically analyzing both the strengths and limitations of these classification systems with diverse populations. Interprofessional education competencies related to teamwork and collaboration, values and ethics, and communication will be addressed.
Mental Health and Mental Disorders in Children and Youth (Credits: 3)
This interprofessional course is for student learners in the areas of social work, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and education. This course will present the state-of-the-art knowledge and research on mental disorders of children and youth, as well as factors that promote mental health, and prevent mental disorders and substance related problems in children and youth. Using a clinical case discussion format, this class will highlight mental health diagnoses, comorbidity, and collaboration across health professions. Social determinants of health/mental health will be used as an organizing framework for discussing the impact of factors associated with health and mental health across diverse cultures, groups and populations. Classification systems of child and youth functioning and disorders will be presented such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition (DSM-5), Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood: DC: 0-5, and the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA). Students will be taught to critically understand both the strengths and limitations of these classification systems and how to use these systems in practice. Interprofessional education competencies related to teamwork and collaboration, values and ethics, and communication will be addressed.
Prerequisites: Please view the course schedule for current advisory and/or enforced prerequisites.Death, Loss and Grief (Credits: 3)
This course will address the theoretical framework of human loss and grief from a culturally and philosophically diverse perspective. Students will be provided with information about why and how humans grieve and how grieving is affected by type of loss, socioeconomic and cultural factors, individual personality and family functioning. Attention will be focused on life span development and the meaning of death and loss at different ages. Various types of loss will be discussed from an individual, family, and socio/cultural perspective. The importance of understanding trauma and its relationship to grief and loss will also be addressed. Coping and resiliency in loss will be explored, emphasizing the diversity of human response and focusing on the significance of social groups in integrating loss. The formation and practice of rituals, and diversity in religious and spiritual experience as a component of coping with loss will be discussed.
Prerequisites: Please view the course schedule for current advisory and/or enforced prerequisites.Research-Informed Practices to Prevent Substance Abuse in Racial and Ethnic Minority Adolescents (Credits: 3)
Substance abuse represents a major public health concern facing America’s youth. Although all adolescents are directly or indirectly impacted by substance abuse, racial and ethnic minority youth are disproportionately impacted. Social workers play a key role in health promotion and disease prevention, including prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation of substance abuse among racial and ethnic minority adolescents in urban settings. This course will draw from multiple disciplines, including social work, epidemiology, public health, psychology, policy and couple and family therapy, to introduce students to theory and knowledge on substance abuse to inform social work practice with racial and ethnic minority adolescents in urban settings. This course will be guided by models and the theoretical frameworks which inform them that have been shown to be efficacious or effective in prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation of substance abuse in adolescents. Therefore, students will be introduced to research-informed substance abuse practices among racial and ethnic minority urban adolescents. For the purposes of this course, substance abuse will include both licit and illicit substances. Students will be asked to demonstrate the ways in which to apply research-informed theory and knowledge in practice settings with racial and ethnic minority urban adolescents.
Prerequisites: Please view the course schedule for current advisory and/or enforced prerequisites.Health Care Policies and Services (Credits: 3)
This course will examine the strengths and limitations of the U.S. health care system, including health indicators and the state of health care delivery in the United States, with selective international comparisons. The role of the public and private sectors in health care and health policy will be presented, with special attention to the financing of health care and the role of the government in health care. The course will focus on the organization of services (i.e., public health, prevention/ promotion services, primary care, acute care, chronic care, and long-term care). Alternative and complementary medicine and services will also be examined. The pharmaceutical and medical devices industries will be examined, as will the health care workforce. Access to care, utilization, and quality of care will be covered. A major focus of the course will be on disparities in health care and on health care for the underserved, including racial/ethnic minorities, women, sexual minorities, and the poor. The role of social workers in health care will be addressed throughout.
Prerequisites: Please view the course schedule for current advisory and/or enforced prerequisites.Policies and Services for Older Adults (Credits: 3)
This course will examine social policies, problems, and trends in social programs and services for older people. It will focus major attention on the strengths and limitations of existing policies and programs related to health, mental health, income maintenance, income deficiency, dependent care, housing, employment and unemployment, and institutional and residential care. This course will provide a framework for an analysis of the services provided to older people. This analysis will include the adequacy with which needs are met in various subgroups of the elderly population and across core diversity dimensions (including ability, age, class, color, culture, ethnicity, family structure, gender (including gender identity and gender expression), marital status, national origin, race, religion or spirituality, sex, and sexual orientation). It will also include proposals for change in policies, programs and services. Programs will be compared in terms of access to benefits and services provided to older people.
Prerequisites: Please view the course schedule for current advisory and/or enforced prerequisites.Immigration, Forced Migration, and Transformative Social Work Practice (Credits: 3)
This course focuses on immigration - one of the most volatile and hotly debated issues of our time. How we respond to the myriad questions about immigration and immigrants and the problems generated by public policy responses to various kinds of immigration will determine how our society and economy will look and function in the future. Students will gain historical, structural and critical analyses of theories and debates related to immigration and forced migration, such as: political economy perspectives about the supply and demand of migrant labor; identity, culture and intersectionality based on Critical Latinx Theory; the challenges of 'Integration'; and tensions between citizenship rights activism versus No Borders activism. Students will understand policies and systems that both facilitate and delimit social work practice with immigrants and refugees, including the family, child welfare, refugee resettlement, asylum, health and mental health, community and legal systems. This course imparts and aspires for social work practice with immigrants and refugees that is forward-looking, transformative and just.
Prerequisites: Please view the course schedule for current advisory and/or enforced prerequisites.Families and Health (Credits: 3)
Families represent the primary setting within which individuals acquire information concerning health, learn specific health-related behaviors, and function as caregivers to others. Because the family and the health and well-being of its constituent members are interconnected in fundamental ways, it is critical that we develop an understanding of this primary institution, the factors that impact on its form and functioning, and their relation to health and health-related concerns. Our general goals will be to examine the ways that families provide for the mental and physical well-being of their members and interface with health institutions and agencies. A primary emphasis of this course is on the concept of family diversity with respect to issues of ethnicity and cultural background, socioeconomic status (i.e., income, education), family composition and marital status and history, sexual orientation, and family extendedness. A concomitant focus will be on exploring the range of diversity that is present within defined population subgroups, as well as the intersection of various social statuses and identities. This approach will provide some sense of the complexity of structure and function apparent within contemporary American families. Finally, a life course perspective is adopted for understanding the nature of the family and the dynamic forces (i.e., individual, family, culture and social change) that influence it.
NOTE: This course is cross listed with HBEHED 629.
Prerequisites: Please view the course schedule for current advisory and/or enforced prerequisites.
