Expanded Description. Most of the reading for this course will be from the book Bioethics: A Committee Approach, by Brendan Minogue, published in 1996 by Jones and Bartlett Publishers, ISBN 0-86720-967-4. Students will need to purchase Minogue’s book ($5-$30 on bookfinder.com plus shipping). Because the book is no longer on the publisher’s shelves, and in the event affordable copies are not available on bookfinder.com,I have been accumulating a small stockpile of low-priced copies which I will/can sell to students for my cost plus mailing and will inform those who sign up for the course of what I have on hand. Supplementary reading materials will be emailed to class participants by pdf or link.
I will begin each class by briefly summarizing what we have read in preparation – indicating the main question(s) before us, perhaps explaining and outlining key arguments and counter arguments contained in our reading to help focus our discussion, and formulating our aim for the class period.
Week 1: Introduction to Healthcare Ethics and A Committee Approach. Minogue, Chapter 1; Email: Article, “Please Don’t Tell”; Clinical Ethics Consensus Statements (Rules of Thumb); Ethical Dimensions 1 pager
Week 2: Forgoing Treatment. Minogue, Chapter 2; Email: Unrepresented Patient Policy; Homeless Patient Decision-making Case
Week 3: Disease-Specific Decision-making: Dementia. Email: John Arras article; Dementia-specific advance directive (2 articles)
Week 4: Culturally-Responsive Health Care Email: Encyclopedia of Bioethics article on Definition of Death (Gervais); Hmong case from Healing by Heart: Pregnant Woman with Brain Hemorrhage and Commentary
Week 5: Euthanasia. Minogue, Chapter 3; Email: Palliative Care Options of Last Resort; Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking; Medical Aid in Dying
Week 6: Abortion. Minogue, Chapter 6; Email: Summer, 2022 Supreme Court Decisions
Week 7: Rationing Health Care. Minogue, Chapter 7; Email: COVID Pandemic Rationing Policy; Rationing in pandemic exercises
Week 8: Pediatrics. Minogue, Chapter 10; Email: Healing by Heart Case study: Infant with Down Syndrome and a Heart Defect; and Commentaries: Vawter: Applying Healing by Heart Model; Concluding Email article: “Bioethics and Cancer: When the Professional Becomes Personal,” Rebecca Dresser