Undergraduate House Course

Duke students on stairs

The Center offers an exciting opportunity for Duke undergraduates to facilitate an undergraduate house course entitled Transforming the U.S. Health Care Delivery System. The house course, begun in 2016, discusses the important concepts underlying health and disease as well as health care delivery. We believe that enabling Duke undergraduates to learn about the forces impacting health care can not only influence their academic and career-related goals but can also give them the opportunity to reflect and improve upon their own health behaviors.

Through class discussions, prominent guest speakers, debates, blog posts, and presentations, the course is highly engaging and thought-provoking with the goal of enabling students to better understand the dynamics of health and health care delivery. 

Objectives of the Course

  • Articulate key concepts about the current state of cost, quality, and access in the U.S. health care system.
  • Define health care delivery and the ways in which it is evolving towards being more preventive, personalized, and predictive.
  • Understand how technology, biomedical innovation, and reimbursement models shape health care delivery systems.
  • Map the political landscape of health care and analyze policy proposals from different stakeholder perspectives.

This course is sponsored by Dr. Ralph Snyderman, Executive Director, Duke Center for Personalized Health Care and Chancellor Emeritus of Duke University. The course is student-led with interns creating and managing the syllabus, guest lecture schedule, grades, and course requirements.