Concept and Organisation of the Master's Degree Program "Health and Society: International Gender Studies Berlin" at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, a joint facility of the Humboldt University and the Free University Berlin in co-operation with the Berlin School of Public Health
"Health care is vital to all of us some of the time, but public health is vital to all of us all of the time" (C.E. Koop)
1 The master's program "Health and Society: International Gender Studies Berlin" has been developed and is offered by the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, a joint facility of the Humboldt University and the Free University Berlin.
2 The "Health and Society" master's program offers continuing education along with an academic degree to women and men aiming to become professional leaders in their home countries or in international organisations, businesses, projects or universities. The program is designed to address globally relevant health and social problems and will be offered in co-operation with scholars from the medical, health, social and cultural sciences. The program will be guided by transnational, intercultural, interdisciplinary principles and a gender-aware perspective. The use of problem-centred teaching and research will serve to enrich the learning experience. Part of the courses on offer are supplemented by online resources. This allow for new forms of teaching and learning.
3 Students will be enabled to recognise the gender-dimensions of science and society, to detect social, gender, ethnic and cultural discrimination, and to develop strategies to counteract these phenomena.
Significance and aims of the Berlin course of study "Health and Society"
4 Public health decisions in individual countries currently have consequences that go beyond national borders (for example, AIDS/HIV problems, health system adjustments of the former Eastern bloc countries). In order to secure appropriate health care for the world's population, knowledge and new findings have to be place in a broad international context. This process has to take place with attention to the process of globalisation and in consideration of gender aspects. Progressive globalisation increasingly demands career flexibility in the health services, requiring a large spectrum of competences and an ability for transnational dialogue. The rich countries of the world are faced with the responsibility to further the global development and qualification needs, and to create possibilities for inter-cultural exchange.
5 Health is more than the medical concept of the absence of disease suggests. In a public health context, health is seen in relation to ecological, economic and psychosocial conditions. Health finds its resources in an ethical attitude of nonviolent politics and in the concept of a society in which the personal and social surroundings of women, children and men are shaped for their well being. In the context of the course of study "Health and Society: International Gender Studies Berlin," subjects will be taught in international comparison. Thus, comparisons between industrialised and developing nations will be undertaken, and resources indispensable for change will be outlined. The students will bring with them specific knowledge and valuable experience from their professional experiences in their own countries, on which their further learning during their studies will be based.