Edward W. Hook Scholars in Humanities and Ethics

Program Description

The Edward W. Hook Scholars Program in Humanities and Ethics* enriches UVA’s medical curriculum by providing a humanities, ethics, and arts pathway through all four years of medical education. Each year, the program selects up to five first-year medical students who intend to make the humanities, ethics, and/or fine and performing arts part of their life in medicine. Hook Scholars become vibrant participants in the Center for Health Humanities and Ethics (CHHE), which provides an organizational frame, a summer research residency, additional humanities/ethics/arts elective time, special activities, and mentoring.

Begun in 2012, the Hook Scholars Program has graduated nearly 60 scholars, with 14 more scholars active in medical school. Scholars’ interests include narrative medicine, literature, visual art, music, dance, history, bioethics, creative writing, environmental humanities, film, and health policy. Graduates have pursued residencies and careers in internal medicine and its subspecialties, surgery, ob/gyn, pediatrics, family medicine, psychiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation, interventional radiology, neurology, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, neurosurgery, and pathology. Several alumni are on medical school faculties, where their practice, teaching, and other activities reflect ongoing humanities, ethics, and arts engagement.

* The Hook Scholars Program remembers Edward W. Hook MD (1924-1998), a celebrated clinician, investigator, teacher, and national medical leader, Dr. Hook understood disease, health, and doctoring in terms of culture, class, geography, economics, ethics, and the arts as well as biomedical science. While chair of Medicine at UVA (1969-1990), he sought to prepare better, more humanistic doctors by helping trainees become more observant, reflective, morally aware, and compassionate. Dr. Hook was founding chair of UVA’s hospital ethics committee, led efforts to place art in our hospitals and clinics, created the medical school’s first faculty position in bioethics, and founded the Program of Humanities in Medicine, predecessor to the Center for Health Humanities and Ethics,

Goal and Objectives

The Hook Scholars Program fosters research and scholarship in health humanities, ethics, and the arts to improve physicians’ clinical capabilities and enrich their lives, by

• Refining clinical skills for better patient care and satisfying practice (e.g. attention/observation, listening, compassion, teamwork, communication, perspective-taking, curiosity and imagination, moral awareness, reflection, emotional intelligence, and tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty)
• Enhancing interdisciplinary learning via humanities, ethics, and arts materials, methods, and learning modes
• Encouraging scholarly/ creative practices that promote health, healing, and well-being
• Informing leadership, service, and policy initiatives
• Promoting careers in health humanities and ethics

Expectations

If selected, each Hook Scholar will

• In the summer after first year, pursue scholarly research for seven weeks in residence at CHHE, under CHHE faculty supervision. (Note: CHHE must approve alternative and/or nonresidential summer activity.) Research will be done through UVA’s Medical Student Summer Research Program (MSSRP), which pays a summer stipend and summer registration fees. Once selected, new scholars will confer with CHHE mentors to hone summer research plans that relate to ongoing CHHE initiatives.
• In Phase III, count toward graduation up to twelve weeks of elective credit in humanities and ethics courses; these twelve weeks include the two-week Calls of Medicine and up to four weeks of independent research.
• If desired, in Phase III and generally for up to four weeks of elective credit, conduct independent research, expand on earlier research, or, as appropriate, prepare a creative arts portfolio.
• Toward the end of Phase III, take the two-week Calls of Medicine course. This capstone seminar is required for graduating Hook Scholars, including those in Pinn College, and meets in person in Charlottesville.
• Engage with the Hook Scholars’ community, with opportunities to model for and mentor each other and to develop learning and service projects.
• Advise CHHE on involving students in the center’s missions and join CHHE faculty in creating special programs.
• Be a CHHE ambassador, promoting health humanities, ethics, and arts programs and perspectives in the medical school, UVA Health, and UVA.

CHHE will offer each Hook Scholar

• Membership in a community focused on health humanities, ethics, and arts as these relate to health, illness, and well-being; medicine and healthcare; and medical education.
• Opportunities to pursue health humanities, ethics, and arts coursework and research.
• Faculty mentoring throughout medical school.
• Special activities, including seminars and interactions with visiting scholars.
• CHHE resources, including faculty expertise, CHHE’s lending library, and study/gathering space.
• Recognition as a Hook Scholar at graduation.

Applying to the Hook Scholars Program

We now welcome applications from the Class of 2029. Deadline for receipt of applications is 11:59 pm on Sunday, 4 January 2026.

In applying, combine the following documents into a single PDF application document:

• Concise (1-2 pages, single-spaced) letter of introduction and intent: Why do you want to be a Hook Scholar?
• Up-to-date resumé or curriculum vitae.
• Undergraduate transcript, and, if applicable, graduate school and/or postbaccalaureate program transcript.
• Sample of undergraduate/graduate work in humanities, ethics, or arts (e.g. analytical paper, sample of original creative work) OR a written reflection on your medical school experience thus far.
• Annotated list of five undergraduate/graduate courses or activities that relate to your Hook Scholars interests, with a sentence about the relevance of each.
• Brief statement about broad, general areas/topics you’d be interested to research in June-July 2026 (limit: 1 page, double-spaced).
• Be sure to include your name and contact information in your application!
• EMAIL your application PDF to Charlene Kaufman, cmk2b@virginia.edu

Also arrange to provide, as a separate document, by 11:59 pm, 4 January 2026:

• A letter of support from someone (e.g. an undergraduate professor) who can speak knowledgeably about your commitment to the humanities, ethics, or arts as part of your medical studies. Waive your right to see this letter. The writer must email the letter directly to Charlene Kaufman, cmk2b@virginia.edu

Questions? 

Students often have questions, so please ask! Contact one of us:

Irène Mathieu, im4uq@uvahealth.org 

Donna Chen, dtc6k@virginia.edu

Marcia Day Childress, mdf4e@virginia.edu

Selection/Notification

The Hook Scholars of the Class of 2029 will be announced by early February 2026.