Who we are

The Charles E. Cheever Jr. for Medical Humanities and Ethics 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-limited environments.

Our Mission and Vision

The Charles E. Cheever Jr. Center for Medical Humanities and 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 ensure 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, we fulfill the Center’s vision: to prepare tomorrow’s healers to act with compassion and justice.

We fulfill our 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 Charles E. Cheever Jr. Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics focuses on four key areas:  Medical Ethics and Professionalism, Literature and Art, Community Service Learning, and Global Health

“The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.” – Sir William Osler

Our History


Faculty and Staff


Advisory Councils


Videos

Discipline Directors

Donate to the Center

The Charles E. Cheever Jr. Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics is supported primarily through philanthropy and our Friends of the Center program. Friends of the Center receive updates on the Center’s activities and invitations to our many public events. In addition, McAllister Circle Members ($1,000+) receive personal invitations to meet some of the Center’s invited guests in smaller, more intimate gatherings.

Ways to Support the Center:

  • Mail In Your Contribution
  • Donate Online
  • Donate Over the Phone – contact Sonia Vasquez at 210-567-0028

For more information on philanthropy or gifts for the Charles E. Cheever Jr. Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at UT Health San Antonio, please contact Sonia G. Vasquez at 210-567-0028.