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FYE 1050A Medical Ethics
CRN 90042
MW 11:30AM-12:51PM, Classroom: RC 418
Dr. Christian Perring, Department of Philosophy, Dowling College
Fall 2010
E-mail: perringc@dowling.edu [All email to me should have "FYE" in the subject line]
Texting: message me at
631-256-7167, always starting your message with FYE and your name.
Office: 330B RC (next to the computer lab)
Student Hours: MW 100-230PM, Tuesday 300-600PM, or by appointment. You can IM me during office hours using the Digsby widget on my home page.
Course description
As a course in medical ethics, it will provide students with philosophical and factual knowledge and both abstract and practical skills. Students will learn about current controversies in medical ethics and the ways that different philosophical theories are used to shed light on conflicting beliefs. This will involve legal, medical and sociological facts about relevant issues such as, for example, the development of a fetus, pregnancy, abortion, genetics, disability, terminal illness, the process of dying, and the distribution of health care. Students will also develop a variety of skills. Through class discussion and paper writing, students will improve their skills of expressing their understanding of the complexities in ethical dilemmas, and searching for satisfactory solutions to those dilemmas. The course will also focus heavily on particular cases involving real people and actual events, and they will learn to see the options available to those people, to assess the ethical strengths and weaknesses of those options, to make a choice of one of those options, and then to articulate a defense of that option. The course will focus on the skills of reading, listening, researching, writing college-level papers, integrating research in papers, working in groups, doing presentations, taking tests, managing time, and being independent.
Required Textbooks:
Case Studies in Biomedical Ethics: Decision-Making, Principles, and Cases, by Robert Veatch, Amy Haddad and Dan English. (Oxford University Press, 2009)
Foundations for Learning (Second Edition) Laurie L. Hazard, Jean-Paul Nadeau, (Prentice Hall, 2008)
Learning Outcomes (College Skills Related)
· Ability to do research in at least one topic
· Understanding of research methods, including web-based research
· Ability to do a presentation to a class
· Ability to write a college-level paper
· Ability to prepare for tests
· Ability to engage in class discussion and understand other people's views.
· Ability to read college-level texts with understanding
· Ability to explain college-level texts to others
· Ability to cite references in APA style
· Ability to plan work schedule.
· Understanding of academic honesty and how to avoid plagiarism.
Learning Outcomes (Medical Ethics)
· Ability to identify moral problems in medical ethics and sort out the factual and ethical issues
· Ability to analyze the moral components of those problems and explain them in terms of moral theory
· Ability to suggest a process through which moral problems can be resolved
· Ability to assess the plausibility of claims by made those on all sides of a moral debate
· Ability to argue for a solution to moral problems in medical ethics
Grade assignment:
Tests: 4 tests, drop lowest test score. 30%
First paper: 15%
Second paper: 30%
Participation: 10%
Presentation: 5%
Personal reflections (5): 10%
Note: If I instruct you to get tutoring for your writing, you must start seeing a writing tutor on a regular basis until your writing has improved sufficiently to be college level. If you do not do this, you will fail the course.
Reading assignments: The reading is listed in the syllabus below. You must do the reading before that week. You should be familiar with the main ideas in each assigned chapter, and you should make notes of those parts that are hard to follow.
Tutorials and advisement: All students will meet with me for at least 1 one-on-one tutorials in my office to discuss their papers, how their first semesters are coming along, and what courses to take in the next semester.
Plagiarism detection and prevention: All papers should be submitted via Turnitin.com in MS Word or RTF. I will give you information about how to use Turnitin.com. Note that I view any form of academic dishonesty very seriously, and if I find that you have engaged in any significant form of plagiarism or cheating I will fail you in this course and report my action to the Dean of Students.
Attendance: Attendance is required. You need to
be in the classroom by the start of the class period, when I will take
attendance. If you are late, you only get half-credit for attendance that
day. If you are late to class, you need to speak to me at the end of
class to explain why you were late and ask me to record your presence on my
roster. If you need to miss a class, you should notify me by phone or
email before the class. If you are ill and see a medical professional, or
you have an unavoidable legal obligation, you should show me some documentation
as evidence. Your attendance grade will suffer significantly if you miss
classes without excuse. If you miss classes, you should write a 600 word
summary of the reading assigned for that class, or arrange some alternative
make-up work. If you miss more than 5 classes without excuse, you will
fail the course.
Email and Blackboard: You should check your Dowling email account at least twice a week. (You can have all your Dowling email forwarded to a different account if you want.). You should also check the Blackboard site for the course at least once a week.
Participation: You should participate in class discussion, both answering questions that are put to the class, raising questions when you do not fully understand an idea or a part of the text, or what someone in the class says. There is a Blackboard site for this course, and you can also participate and discuss issues there.
Papers. There will be 2 papers. The first will be 600 words (excluding the bibliography); it should have at least one scholarly reference. The second will be 1200 words (excluding the bibliography); it should have at least 2 scholarly references. They should use APA formatting. The paper should focus on critically examining arguments. The scholarly references should be used in a way that helps your paper. It is important that you write in clear English with no grammatical or spelling errors. Good writing style will be rewarded. For each, 70% of the grade is on the content, and 30% is for writing style, formatting, grammar and spelling.
Missed Tests. If you miss a test, you get zero credit for it, and there is no option of make ups, whatever, your excuse. There will be 4 tests, and the lowest grade will be dropped.
Late Papers. Late papers will be penalized, 1% for each day late. No excuses will be accepted. You should start early on your papers and have them close to finished a few days before they are due.
Personal Reflections: These should be at least 400 words, in grammatical English. They will not be graded, but I will give you some feedback on them. You either get credit for them or you don't. They are not meant to be academically challenging, but are meant to give you the opportunity to link the topics of the class to your own life and ideas you have about how best to make decisions. It is up to you how much of your own personal experience you include, but you are encouraged to do so link your own life with philosophical discussions.
Classroom Etiquette. All cell phones ringers should be turned off and you should never talk on your cell phone in class. You should never text in class. You should not eat any food in class, especially food that others will notice through sound or smell. You should turn up on time to all classes. You are free to express your views and question the views of others, including your professor, and you can be passionate about your opinions. However, you must always treat others in the class with respect; you can criticize the views and arguments of others, but you cannot criticize them as persons. You should also make sure you are not dominating classroom discussion to the exclusion of other class members.
Extra Credit. There will be a few extra credit options such as going to talks by visiting speakers or going to plays and writing 600 words about it afterwards. All extra credit options will be available to all students. If you want an extra credit option or have an idea for a task to perform to get extra credit. Extra credit options normally provide 2% added to your total grade. No student can receive more than 4% extra credit.
Academic and Personal Problems. If you have problems that cause you to be late with work or to miss a number of classes, please stay in communication by phone, email, or by meeting with me in person. I will be willing to work with you and sort out a way for you to still stay in the class and get a fair grade. If you miss a number of classes or fail to hand in work on time but don't give me any explanation then you risk failing the class. Most people experience some sort of crisis during their college career, and you need to find ways to make sure that such problems don't ruin your college career.
Presentations. You must sign up to do a presentation in by the end of the Week 2. You can use Powerpoint to do your presentation, but it is not required. However you do your presentation, you must keep it lively and interesting, and you should not simply read out from a pre-written text. You should provide some information that is not available in the course textbook. 5 minutes long. You must rehearse your presentation ahead of time and get the timing right. You can use Powerpoint, but you do not need to. The main priority is to explain your information clearly and in ways that get people's attention.
Either
On Cases from Case Studies. The presentation should
a) Set out relevant information
b) Identify the Ethical Problem
c) Identify options with pros and cons
d) Discuss who should make the decision, and make a recommendation.
Or
Present the results of an interview with a Dowling faculty member, setting out information about them including
a) How they decided to become an academic
b) What they had to do to become an academic
c) What their research or creative work is about
d) What kinds of courses they teach
e) What their college experience was like
f) A photograph of the faculty member to display via the computer.
Keeping Copies of Your Work. It is your responsibility to keep copies of all your work in this course until your final grade is submitted. You need to keep copies of your work in at least 3 different places, because all storage methods are fallible. Floppy disks are very unreliable and I recommend you don't use them. If you do use them, back them up every day. Better methods of storage are writable CDs, flashdrives or jumpdrives, zip-drives, hard disks, and emails to yourself with your work attached to the emails. You can also use free online backup programs such as Mozy. It can be a good idea to print out your work and keep a hard copy. But remember that no method of data storage is perfect, which is why you should keep your work stored in at least 3 separate places.
Final Deadline: All work is due by December 15. I will submit final grades to the Registrar on December 17. You must make sure that you have given me:
· a draft version of your final paper
· electronic copies of all the papers via Blackboard or Turnitin (do NOT email me your paper)
· If required, proof that you consulted with a writing tutor.
If I don't have all of these, you will fail the course.
Course Syllabus
|
Date |
Topic |
Presentation Topics |
Reading |
Work |
|
9/1 |
Introduction |
|
|
|
|
9/8 |
What College Means |
|
Foundations Ch 1. |
|
|
9/13 |
You and Others |
|
Foundations Ch 2. |
Reflection 1: Do your own academic autobiography. Foundations Exercise 2.2, page 27. |
|
9/15 |
Difference and Coexistence |
Faculty Profile |
Foundations Ch 3. |
|
|
9/20 |
Planning |
|
Foundations Ch 4. |
Test 1. |
|
9/22 |
Ethical Problem Solving |
Faculty Profiles |
Case Studies Ch 1. |
Reflection 2 |
|
9/27 |
Value Judgments |
Case 2-2: Treating Breast Cancer Case 2-4: Baby Doe: Legal and Moral Options |
Case Studies Ch 2. |
|
|
9/29 |
Adjusting your Attitudes |
Faculty Profile |
Foundations Ch 5. |
|
|
10/4 |
Communicating |
Faculty Profile |
Foundations Ch 6. |
|
|
10/6 |
Grounding Ethics |
Case 3-2: The Case of the Meddling Clergyman Case 3-3: Providing Less-than-Optimal Services |
Case Studies Ch 3. |
Reflection 3 |
|
10/11 |
Doing Good |
Case 4-1: Stimulants as a Performance Enhancer Case 4-2: Is an Operation a Benefit for a Hospice Patient? Case 4-3: The Benefits and Harms of High-Risk Chemotherapy |
Case Studies Ch 4. |
|
|
10/13 |
Reading and Note Taking |
Faculty Profile |
Foundations Ch 7. |
|
|
10/18 |
Taking Responsibility |
|
Foundations Ch 8. |
Test 2 |
|
10/20 |
Autonomy |
Movie: My Sister's Keeper |
|
Reflection 4 |
|
10/25 |
|
Case 6-1: Borderline Competency Case 6-2: A Mature 12-Year-Old Who Refuses a Heart Transplant Case 6-3: Readdicting a Heroin User |
Case Studies Ch 6. |
First Paper due |
|
10/27 |
Truth Telling |
Case 7-2: Placebos for Addiction Withdrawal Case 7-3: Confessing an Error in Judgment Case 7-6: A Clash of Cultures: A Japanese Family Asks that Their Father Not Be Told of Cancer Case 7-8: A Psychiatric Patient's Right to See Her Medical Record |
Case Studies Ch 7 |
|
|
11/1 |
Killing and Letting Die |
Case 9-2: Karen Quinlan Case 9-4: Claire Conroy |
Case Studies Ch 9. |
|
|
11/3 |
|
Case 9-5: Terri Schiavo Case 9-6: Assisted Suicide, Alzheimer's Disease, and Depression |
Case Studies Ch 9. |
Test 3 |
|
11/8
|
|
|
|
Draft of final paper due |
|
11/10 |
Genetics and Assisted Reproduction |
Case 11-2: Dwarfism: When Is a Fetus |
Case Studies Ch 11. |
|
|
11/15 |
Mental Illness |
Movie: One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest |
|
|
|
11/17 |
|
Case 12-1: Guilt over Suicidal Thoughts Case 12-3: The Jesus Christian Transplant |
Case Studies Ch 12. |
|
|
11/22 |
|
Case 12-7: Treating in Order to Stand Trial Case 12-9: Starving an Adolescent to Shape Him Up |
Case Studies Ch 12. |
Reflection 5 |
|
11/29 |
Consent |
Case 17-4: Consenting to Admission to a Psychiatric Unit Case 17-7: An Adolescent Refusing a Blood Transfusion |
Case Studies Ch 17 |
|
|
12/2 |
|
|
|
Final Paper Due |
|
12/6 |
|
Final presentations/Review |
|
|
|
12/8 |
|
|
|
Test 4 |
|
12/13 |
Final Discussion |
|
|
|
Wed Sept 1, Fall Semester Begins
Monday Sept 6, No classes
Wed Sept 8, No classes after 5pm
Wed Nov 24, No classes
Classes end Monday Dec 13