Health Care Ethics
PHIL 4350 & 5350
Section #9305 & 9306
Instructor: Prof.
Peter J. Mehl
Fall 2001
Office: Irby 108; Email: peterm@mail.uca.edu
Office phone: 450-3207
Office hours: MWF 11:00 – 11:45; 1:00 – 1:30 in the State Hall faculty
office, and 1:30 - 2, and 3 - 4 pm back in Irby 108.
The best way to meet with me is by appointment; call or email to set one up.
Virtual office hours: Almost always between 8 am and 4:45 pm.
UCA adheres
to the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
If you need an accommodation under this Act due to a disability, contact
the Office of Disability Support Services at 450-3135.
Course
Description and Objectives
This course is an upper level course designed to increase understanding and
skill in the analysis of ethical issues in a health care context. As an online
course it will be structured as an asynchronous seminar!
It will be delivered using WebCT. I
have used WebCT to augment an on-campus course, but this will be the first time
I used it for a complete off-campus course.
I suspect that it is new learning vehicle for most of you too.
If I have overestimated the amount of material that we can cover each
week, we can scale back; I usual plan more than I can cover in class, but this
is a different format! Please be patient. And
remember, I am not a computer expert!
The course objectives are:
Health Care Ethics fulfills the above objectives through increasing your ability to engage in moral discernment and deliberation. Doing this involves a number of dimensions. We will study moral reasoning, ethical theory, examine some critical moral principles, and learn to apply these to selected issues in health care, (such as informed consent, the right to refuse treatment, the obligations of patient and provider). We will study philosophical analyses of these issues and actual cases. In our study we will gain some understanding of the complexity of moral matters and come to a deeper understanding of the moral dimension of the human condition We will work to increase our practical reasoning skills in the examination concrete cases and issues. As a course delivered almost completely on-line, through WebCT, course delivery and assignments will require use of information technology.
Required
Readings
Selections from Garrett, Baillie and Garrett, Health
Care Ethics, 4th edition, Prentice Hall, 2001.
Selections from Kuczewski &
Pinkus, An Ethics Casebook for Hospitals, Georgetown University Press,
1999.
Any additional readings/handouts, most of which are found below.
Course
Web Site
For our course shell, go to: the
WebCT server.
For help click on Need Help? Follow
instructions to create myWebCT. Then
find our course on the entry page, under PHIL courses, and self-register for
Healthcare Ethics. Please do this
during the first week of classes.
Recommended Resources
WWW sites of interest:
Ethics Updates
Religious Tolerance Site
The Allan Guttmacher Institute
BearMail: As soon as possible, sign up for the BearMail
distribution list for our class: Health Care Ethics. Go to the main UCA web
page; under “QuickLinks” click on Bear mail: follow instructions. My
“faculty code” is: CMP2001. Be sure to read the instructions. You must “activate”
your account.
Course
Requirements
On campus meetings: There will be three on campus meetings: Dates: August
25th, October 6th, and December 8th. These meetings will run from 9 am to 4 pm and will be held in Irby 101.
Regular weekly
participation in Threaded Discussions, (and possibly an occasional chat
room session, say monthly).
Participating in Threaded
Discussions
Weekly
reading of and responding to notes posted. Most of the time I will take the lead in posting notes, comments and
questions about the week’s reading. But
I think it is also appropriate for each of you to take that lead occasionally
and post your notes and questions for the rest of us to respond to. (We will
decide who will do what at our first meeting. How many times will be determined
by how many people are in the course.) When
one of us posts his or her notes and questions, the others should follow with a
response to the questions and other comments about the week’s readings.
This response should be approximately 2 or 3 pages, but the quality is
more important than the quantity.
The lead
reviewer will post his or her notes and questions by Wednesday morning at 10 CST
(earlier in the week is also alright). The rest of us will respond to ME by
Friday evening 8 CST.
In your
response you should respond to the leader’s comments and questions, but you
can also make your own comments and raise your own questions.
Remember, you will send your written response to me.
After all are received, I will ask you to post your response to your
presentations page. We can then consider each other’s comments and responses.
Further questions and comments should be then posted it to the Threaded
Discussion, do not respond privately. These comments and questions will often
constitute the stuff of our threaded discussions.
Use of the
Presentations page When all have
submitted their responses to me, I will ask you to post your responses to the
weekly readings. I will also ask
you to post your final version of the case analyses.
I encourage you to post cases that you have encountered or are
encountering.
Written case
analyses. We will analyze cases throughout the course.
You will write polished analyses of cases in the Health Care Ethics text.
We will use the Ethics Casebook to explore how to analyze cases (See
especially their Appendix: “Teaching Case Presentations”), and to consider
the practical aspects (difficulties!) involved in the application of more
abstract ethical principles and rules.
The last written case analysis will be one that comes from your
professional experience. (If you do
not have such a context at present, you can choose a case from the Hastings
Center Report.) These case
analyses will be posted on the presentations page.
Final in class presentation: This will be your last written case
analysis. On our final class
meeting, each person will present a case analysis for discussion and critique.
It should also be written up and turn in to me
If you would like to
submit a draft of your case analysis, it must be submitted 72 hours (3
days) before the due date. I prefer
that you submit it electronically as an email attachment in Microsoft Word. I
will return it to you by email 24 hours before the final version is due.
As an alternative you can simply send the paper as an email, that is
“paste” it into your email to me. You may also submit your final version
as an email attachment. These
papers are not research papers. They
are designed to test your understanding of the material we have read and
discussed, and to improve your critical moral thinking and writing.
I will provide guidelines for writing these.
Plagiarism is not a wise policy; it could result in a failing grade. Other
academic policies can be found in the Student Handbook.
2 Case Analyses (4 –5 pages)
200 pts (100 pts each)
Threaded discussions, chat room sessions
100
pts
Weekly reading responses
(10 responses) 300 pts
(30 pts each)
In class participation, and 3rd
case analysis presentation 100 pts
Course Grade Scale:
Total points divided by 7 applied to the standard grade scale.
Grading
reading responses and case analyses
Minimal and purely perfunctory responses. Grade
D
Adequate responses, but begging for development. Grade C
Good responses from a mind seriously engaged with the material.
Grade B
Insightful connections with other material covered in readings and/or brought in
from personal experience but pertinent to the material under consideration.
Issues explored in a critical, creative and comprehensive manner.
Grade A
Late papers Each day late
after the due date takes the grade down a letter.
Course
Schedule (tentative)
Week One (8/20 –
24)
In preparation for our first on-campus meeting, read Chapter One in Health
Care Ethics and the Preface and case number #1 and #26 in the Ethics
Casebook.
August 25 on campus meeting
Introduction to Web CT
Introduction to the course: syllabus, practical deliberation, case analysis, etc.
Morality, Moral
Principles, and Moral Reasoning
Introductory lecture and case discussions
Handouts:
A Set of Moral Principles
Guidelines for Case Analysis
A Guide to the Application of Utilitarian and
Kantian Ethical Theory
Good Reasoning, Moral Reasoning
Notes on Reasoning
Week Two (8/27 – 31)
Chapter Two: Principles of Autonomy and Informed Consent
Case #2 and #24 in the Ethics Casebook
Week Three (9/3 – 7)
Chapter Three: Principles of Beneficence and Nonmaleficence
Case #3 and #25 in the
Ethics Casebook
Handout: Quality of Life
Week Four (9/10 – 14)
Chapter Four: The Ethics of Distribution
Case #8 and #22 in the Ethics Casebook
Week Five (9/17 –
21)
Chapter Five: Principles of Confidentiality and Truthfulness
Case #23 and #30 in the Ethics Casebook
First case analysis
due on 9/21. Pick a case at the end of chapters 2 – 5 in Health Care Ethics.
Prepare a written case analysis using the above guidelines.
Week Six (9/24 –
28)
Chapter Six: Professional Standards and Institutional Ethics
Case #21 in the Ethics Casebook
Week Seven (10/1 –
5)
Chapter Seven: Ethical Problems of Death and Dying
Case #4 in the Ethics Casebook
We met on Campus on
Saturday October 6th this week, so this will be a time to discuss
face to face, recap what we have covered to date, and to consider needed
changes, etc. Bring your written response and question for the material to this
class; we will not post this week but discuss chapter 7 in class. We will view
and discuss two videos: "Dr. Kevorkian and Active Euthanasia."
Ethics in America: “Does Doctor Know Best?”
Week Eight (10/8 – 12)
I will be out of town most of this week, but I should have internet access, and
so we can continue to communicate and discuss, but just to be on the safe side,
this will be a light week; Begin reading chapter 8. Use the web to find a copy of Roe v. Wade and read it.
Week Nine (10/15 –
19)
Chapter Eight: Abortion and Maternal Fetal Conflict
Case #13 in the Ethics Casebook
Handouts related to
Abortion: Criteria for Moral Standing
Voluntariness,
Responsibility and the Ethics of Abortion
Second case analysis due on 10/19. Pick a case at the end of chapters 6 – 8 in Health Care Ethics.
Prepare a written case analysis using the above guidelines
Week Ten (10/22 –
26)
Chapter Nine: New Methods of Reproduction
Week Eleven (10/29
– 11/2)
Chapter Ten: The Ethics of Transplants
Week Twelve
(11/5 – 9)
Chapter 11: The Ethics of Testing and Screening
Week Thirteen (11/12 – 16)
Chapter 12: The Ethics of Biomedical Research