Important Note: Starting Fall 2022, Health Care Studies requirements will update. If you will still be enrolled as an undergraduate student after Spring 2022, please use these new updated requirements.
Core Requirements (12 units total)
General Biology | BISC-220 or 221 | 4 units
General Chemistry | CHEM-105a or 115a | 4 units
Healthcare Foundations: Core Concepts and Terminology | MEDS-220 | 2 units
Introduction to Professionalism and the Practice of Medicine | MEDS-225 | 2 units
Elective Requirements (12 units total)
Students may choose from our list of accepted electives, which includes both 2-unit and 4-unit courses, in order to fulfill the 12 unit elective requirement.
Unique Unit Requirement (16 units of your total 24 minimum)
Of the TOTAL units in the student’s Health Care Studies minor, 16 of these units must be unique to the minor (meaning doesn’t satisfy your major or a GE) and outside of the Major’s department (does not share the same prefix as the major’s department, for example BISC-major needs to take 16 units that are not BISC courses, NEUR-major needs non-BISC and non-CHEM, HBIO needs to take non-BISC, and non-HBIO, etc.). Note that MEDS-220 (2 units) and MEDS-225 (2 units) satisfy this unique and outside major requirement, so that is 4 units already. The remaining 12 units of this requirement can be satisfied through elective courses.
If you have any questions, please email our program email at mhcs@usc.edu.
Accepted Electives List
Please note that all MEDS courses fall under our department and are automatically unique electives except courses that are cross-listed with the Iovine Academy ACAD dept.
MEDS Courses
| MEDS 260 Challenges in the Forefront of Biomedical Ethics | 2 |
| MEDS 280 The History of Medicine: a Doctor’s Perspective | 2 |
| MEDS 300g Statistical Methods for Biomedical Research | 4 |
| MEDS 315 Human Anatomy, Physiology, and the Technology of Medicine | 2 |
| MEDS 320 Human Cadaveric Anatomy | 4 |
| MEDS 330 Bionics: Solutions to Enable the Disabled | 2 |
| MEDS 335 Human Development: From Stem to Sternum | 2 |
| MEDS 340 The Brain in Health and Disease | 4 |
| MEDS 350 Neurochemistry of Addiction: Drugs, Brain, and Behavior | 2 |
| MEDS 355 Skeletal Biology and Pathology | 2 |
| MEDS 360 Bench to Bedside: Application of the Basic Sciences | 2 |
| MEDS 370 Organ Failure: Non-Communicable Chronic Disease | 2 |
| MEDS 380 Stem Cells: Fact and Fiction | 2 |
| MEDS 405 Health Care Systems: A Doctor’s Perspective | 2 |
| MEDS 420 Clinical Pediatrics | 2 |
| MEDS 425 Medical Examiner-Coroner: Investigating Death | 2 |
| MEDS 440 Introduction to Surgical Principles | 2 |
| MEDS 445 Cancer: Introduction to Oncology in the Modern Era | 2 |
| MEDS 450 OB/GYN: The Medicine and Surgery of Reproduction | 2 |
| MEDS 455 Integrative Health Care | 2 |
| MEDS 460 Emergency Health Care | 2 |
| MEDS 465 Wilderness and Survival Medicine | 4 |
| MEDS 490x Directed Research in Biomedical Science at HSC or CHLA | 2, 4, 6 |
Non-MEDS Courses
| ANTH 101g Body, Mind and Healing: Introduction to Medical Anthropology | 4 |
| BISC 150Lgx The Nature of Human Health and Disease | 4 |
| BISC 300L Introduction to Microbiology | 4 |
| BISC 307L General Physiology | 4 |
| BISC 312x Molecular Biochemistry | 4 |
| BISC 320Lg Molecular Biology | 4 |
| BISC 330L Biochemistry | 4 |
| BISC 421 Neurobiology | 4 |
| BISC 423 Epilepsy to Ecstasy: Biological Basis of Neurological Disorders | 4 |
| BISC 450L Principles of Immunology | 4 |
| CHEM 350g Molecular Principles of Biochemistry | 4 |
| HBIO 301L Human Anatomy | 4 |
| PSYC 100Lg Introduction to Psychology | 4 |
| PSYC 336L Developmental Psychology | 4 |
| PSYC 360 Abnormal Psychology | 4 |
| SOCI 475 Medical Sociology | 4 |
The list of accepted electives can also be found on the Health Care Studies Minor page of the USC Catalogue. While these courses are divided into categories, students can choose electives from any of the categories and do not have to only choose from one group.