The way we view, think about, and work in hospitals is constantly changing, which is why the University of Miami’s School of Law has created a new interdisciplinary course, The Idea of the Hospital. This graduate-level course will be offered this spring semester and spans eight distinct disciplines and six schools and colleges across UM.

While the course has been organized, coordinated, and sponsored by the School of Law, it will be taught by UM professors from the School of Architecture, School of Business Administration, College of Engineering, School of Law, Miller School of Medicine and its Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, and the School of Nursing and Health Studies.

Based on the distinctive vision of Vice Dean Patrick Gudridge, this new course is “really unique, perhaps the first course in the country to have so many schools and colleges teaching one course,” explains Sandra Abraham, executive liaison of interdisciplinary programs and initiatives at the law school.

The course will be taught in eight full-day/eight-hour Saturday classes. Students are required to attend five full days out of the eight, and all lectures will be given at the School of Law, except for the second class, which will meet at the Miller School of Medicine. Students are required to complete three ten-page analysis/critique papers, with the exception of students from the Miller School of Medicine and the School of Business Administration, who are required to complete two papers.

Abraham expects that approximately 24 students will take the course. “Both graduate and professional students whose current or future work places them in a hospital setting would greatly benefit from this course,” says Abraham. “We would like this course to serve as a model for the development of other interdisciplinary courses whose topics are of interest to multiple schools at UM.”