The Master of Science in Media, Medicine, and Health is a nine-month Harvard Medical School graduate program for those interested in using storytelling to promote health.
The Master of Science in Media, Medicine, and Health is the only master’s degree program in the world to offer evidence-based, multidisciplinary storytelling and an arts-driven curriculum focusing on health interventions. Students will have expert mentors guide them through using the storytelling medium of their choice (for example, film, creative nonfiction, podcasting, or graphic design) to craft a novel public health intervention.
Students create media projects on a health topic of their choice in the storytelling method of their choice, working closely with expert mentors. Students have created capstones in a variety of modalities, including an interactive data visualization highlighting gaps in childhood tuberculosis diagnosis, medical journalism on the causes and treatment of diabetic foot infections, a video game to reduce anxiety for children before surgery, a documentary examining inequities in end-of-life care for people with brain cancer, and a journalistic investigation of state violence against women in Iran. Recent mentors include Ashley C. Ford, author of the New York Times bestselling Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir, an Oprah Book; Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, USA TODAY’s Executive Editor for Investigations and Storytelling and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for public service; Jessica Chow Shinn, a pianist and associate professor at Boston Conservatory at Berklee who has performed at venues including Alice Tully Hall, the Green Music Center, and Salle Cortot in Paris; and Mike Shum, a documentary filmmaker whose work with PBS FRONTLINE and Al Jazeera Witness has covered conflict, climate change, and political polarization and earned recognition from the National News & Documentary Emmys and was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist.
Students take classes from award-winning and bestselling writers and artists including Jill Damatac, a filmmaker and author of Dirty Kitchen, a Filipino American food memoir of 22 years as an undocumented immigrant in the United States; Saeed Jones, co-host of the podcast Vibe Check, and author of the memoir How We Fight for Our Lives (winner of the Kirkus Prize) and the poetry collection Alive at the End of the World (winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award); and Dr. Suzanne Koven, MD, MFA, the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Massachusetts General Hospital, a physician for more than 30 years, who writes about medicine, gender, and culture, is the author of Letter to a Young Female Physician and the forthcoming memoir The Mirror Box. The program also features classes developed with the MIT Game Lab, as well as visual arts, scientific visualization, design thinking, health care innovation, social medicine, and global health.
More alumni perspectives
|
|
Each year, the program is joined by a distinguished artist-in-residence who works closely with students throughout the academic year, offering workshops, office hours with students, and public conversations that bridge the arts and medicine.
For the 2026–2027 academic year, the artist-in-residence will be Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist and Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel, a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, and publishes an imprint at Grove Atlantic, Roxane Gay Books. She is also the site editor and owner of The Rumpus.
The program is led by Faculty Director Dr. Mercedes C. Becerra, ScD, the Jeffrey Cheah Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, who has spent more than 25 years working to improve the treatment and prevention of tuberculosis, especially for children, around the world, and Program Director Dr. Jason Bryan Silverstein, PhD, a science journalist and medical anthropologist in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School whose work on health and human rights has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, GQ, The Hill, and Esquire.
Join the Media, Medicine, and Health newsletter for updates on the program.
Who Should Apply?
The Master of Science in Media, Medicine, and Health program is designed for health care professionals, medical and public health students, journalists, health advocates, bioethicists, foundation staff, hospital administrators, public health policymakers, writers, activists—anyone interested in telling stories to improve health and make a difference in the world through media.
The program will prepare students for a range of jobs in traditional and social media, journalism, foundations, direct health care, health care policy, and community organizations, and provide valuable networking opportunities with experts in various industries and storytelling modalities.
Contact Us
If you have additional questions, please email the program at mmh@hms.harvard.edu or call 617-432-5292.