Spring 2010 Bioethics Courses
BTHX 5000 Topics
Section I - War & Bioethics (3 cr)
M 4:30-7 pm
Steven Miles, MD; Mary Faith Marshall, PhD
This class will use a variety of fiction and nonfiction to explore selected issues in war and bioethics. Examples of topics will include battlefield medical triage, medical experiments on prisoners, mandatory vaccination of soldiers, embargoes of public health supplies, clinician collaboration with harsh interrogations, and field exemption from battlefield duty for PTSD. Students will be required to write a 20 page academic paper.
Section II – Morality and Risk (3 cr)
T 2:30-5 pm
Joan Liaschenko, RN, PhD, FAAN
This course examines the centrality of the concept of risk in contemporary health care and the ways in which it influences morality by attributing blame and redistributing responsibility for bad events. The course will examine the history of the concept, its relation to ideas of contamination, the ways in which it structures the diverse practices that constitute health care from an individual to a population, and how it works to construct and maintain contemporary views of a healthy and morally ordered world.
BTHX 5210 – Ethics of Human Subjects Research (3 cr)
TH 9:05-11:35 am
Jeffrey Kahn, PhD; John Song, MD
This course addresses the fundamental issues in the ethics and oversight of human subjects research, and places these issues into the broader context of the responsible conduct of research.
BTHX 5453 – Law, Biomedicine and Bioethics (3 cr)
(cross listed with LAW 6853, 2 cr)
W 3:35-5:30 pm
Susan Wolf, JD
This seminar examines law and bioethics as means of controlling important biomedical developments, and discusses the relationship of law and bioethics and their role in governing biomedical research, reproductive decision-making, assisted reproduction, genetic testing/screening, genetic manipulation, cloning, the definition of death, use of life-sustaining treatment, and organ transplantation.
BTHX 5610 - Bioethics Research & Publication Seminar (1 cr)
Steven Miles, MD
This seminar is tailored to students wishing to incorporate work in bioethics into their career plans. It provides an overview of research methods, and discusses career publication strategies, authorship issues, ethics in publication, and peer review.
BTHX 5900 – Independent Study in Bioethics (1-4 cr)
Center Faculty
Students propose an area for study with faculty guidance, expressed in a written proposal which includes outcome objectives and work plan. A faculty member directs the student's work and evaluates their project.
BTHX 8500 – Practicum in Bioethics (1-3 cr)
Center Faculty
This course provides supervised placement to apply knowledge and learned through work in core courses. An individualized plan is developed between student, bioethics adviser or DGS, and mentor at practicum site.
BTHX 8610 – Medical Consumerism (3 cr)
Carl Elliott, PhD
The purpose of this course is to explore the roots and implications of what we will call “medical consumerism.” How is the consumerist model of medicine shaping our concepts of disease and disability? What larger historical developments have led to our current situation? How is the movement towards medical consumerism changing the profession of medicine itself? And how are the tools of medical enhancement shaping the way we think about our identities and the way we live our lives? This seminar will draw on an interdisciplinary set of texts from philosophy, history, literature, law, film and the social sciences as a way of exploring these larger questions.
BTHX 8777 Thesis Credits: Master’s
BTHX 8900 – Advanced Independent Study in Bioethics (1-4 cr)
Center Faculty
Students propose an area for advanced study with faculty guidance, expressed in a written proposal which includes outcome objectives and work plan. A faculty member directs the student's work and evaluates their project.