INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHICAL BIOETHICS
PHIL OF BIOETHICS (ONLINE)
In contemporary bioethics, we find ourselves grappling with practically important, and at the same time, philosophically fundamental questions such as: When does someone’s life begin and how should it end? What is the proper role of physicians, nurses and other health care providers and what are the rights of their patients? What is a just and fair way to provide access to health-care services and resources? Which potential uses of new genetic and reproductive technologies would represent a legitimate advance in medicine and which would signify the beginning of a humanly degrading "brave new world"? Indeed, in a society committed to protecting a diversity of lifestyles and opinions, how can citizens resolve significant policy controversies such as whether there should be public funding of human embryonic stem cell research, or a legally protected right to physician assistance in ending one’s life?
The aims of this course are to identify the fundamental ethical questions that underlie contemporary biomedical practice; develop skill in analyzing and clarifying key concepts such as autonomy, justice, health and disease; critically assess the healthcare implications of different ethical outlooks; explore how citizens can reasonably address controversial bioethical issues in a mutually respectful and constructive way.
The course meets once a week for an hour and a half. Live-session interaction and post-session discussion forums play a key role as students explore, in a give-and-take spirit, the pros and cons of each position.
This course is designed for medical students, nursing students, and other healthcare professionals, as well as for students at the graduate or advanced undergraduate level in biology, philosophy, political science, public health, law, and related fields.
- T 3:45 p.m.-5:45 p.m.
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Instructor:
Arthur Kuflik
Info - 3 points
LAW & BIOETHICS
This course introduces students to selected legal and policy texts that have addressed issues in bioethics and shaped their development. Students will explore and contrast legal reasoning and bioethical analysis, often of the same issues. By the end of the course, students will understand the legal or regulatory status of selected issues and have begun to independently navigate major legal, regulatory, and policy texts. Individual sessions will be focused around particular issues or questions that have been addressed by (usually) American courts and/or in legislation, regulation or policy, and that have been the subject of scholarship and debate within bioethics.
The course begins with a theoretical look at the relationship between law and ethics, and includes a brief introduction to legal decision-making and policy development. We then survey a range of bioethics issues that have been addressed by the courts and/or in legislation, regulation, or significant policy documents, contrasting and comparing legal argument and reasoning with arguments utilized in the bioethics literature.
- F 9 a.m.-11 a.m.
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Instructor:
David N Hoffman
h-index: 2 Info - 3 points
LAW & BIOETHICS
LAW & BIOETHICS (ONLINE)
This course introduces students to selected legal and policy texts that have addressed issues in bioethics and shaped their development. Students will explore and contrast legal reasoning and bioethical analysis, often of the same issues. By the end of the course, students will understand the legal or regulatory status of selected issues and have begun to independently navigate major legal, regulatory, and policy texts. Individual sessions will be focused around particular issues or questions that have been addressed by (usually) American courts and/or in legislation, regulation or policy, and that have been the subject of scholarship and debate within bioethics.
The course begins with a theoretical look at the relationship between law and ethics, and includes a brief introduction to legal decision-making and policy development. We then survey a range of bioethics issues that have been addressed by the courts and/or in legislation, regulation, or significant policy documents, contrasting and comparing legal argument and reasoning with arguments utilized in the bioethics literature.
- T 8 p.m.-10 p.m.
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Instructor:
David N Hoffman
h-index: 2 Info - 3 points
CLINICAL ETHICS
While this course is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of clinical ethics and the basic terminology and framework of ethical analysis in biomedical ethics, it offers a more sociological perspective, putting the contemporary clinical issues into a broader context. We will look briefly at the development of clinical ethics and its impact on hospital care and doctor-patient relationships, on the prevailing autonomy norm and its critique. The course then focuses on issues encountered in clinical practice such as informed consent, patient capacity, decision-making, end of life, advance directives, medical futility, pediatrics ethics, maternal-fetal conflicts, organ transplantation, cultural competence and diversity of beliefs and others. The course will examine the role of the clinical ethics consultant (CEC) and assignments will mimic the work that CECs may perform in the hospital setting.
Over the span of the semester, students become familiar with the ethical questions surrounding major topics in the clinic with a practical case-based approach toward ethics dilemmas and ethics consultation. During the semester, students in New York attend a meeting of the adult or pediatric ethics committees of New York Presbyterian and Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital or another area hospital, as well as ethics lectures given at the medical center.
Students are expected to complete five case write-ups using a template that will be given by the instructor. Students will be using these cases to refine and hone their ethical analysis skills and to show their knowledge of law, policy and ethical principles and how they might apply to each situation.
- W 2 p.m.-4 p.m.
- R 9:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m.
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Instructor:
Barbra Rothschild
Info - 3 points
GLOBAL ETHICS
Increasingly, issues of medical research and clinical care are posing complex ethical issues not only in the United States, but in other countries in both the industrialized and the developing world. Yet varying economic, political, social, cultural, and historical contexts shape these issues. In diverse contexts in Asia, Africa, Europe and North and South America, practices and policies, along with cultures and moral values, differ enormously. Yet ethical issues are arising not in isolation, but as part of global communities and discourses. In research, multinational pharmaceutical companies are increasingly conducting studies in both industrialized countries and the developing world, posing numerous ethical tensions. In clinical care, uses of reproductive technologies differ across national borders, leading to “reproductive tourism”. End of life care varies widely, reflecting in part differing attitudes toward death and dying. This course examines the political, economic, social, cultural, philosophical, medical, and historical roots and implications of these issues.
The course meets once a week online for an hour and a half, and offers extensive live-session interaction and post-session discussion forums to explore the various bioethical issues contemplated throughout the semester.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
- T 6 p.m.-7:45 p.m.
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Instructor:
Robert L Klitzman
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
BIOETHICS AND PANDEMICS
Infectious disease pandemics have emerged with often devastating morbidity and mortality since the beginning of recorded history. In the current era, COVID-19 has provided a multitude of examples of bioethical questions and challenges, including government preparedness, drug and vaccine development and legal approval, sufficient efficacy of prevention and treatment, resource allocation, and what information people give credibility to and which determine their behaviors. While COVID-19 was unique, many of the bioethical and policy concerns had precedent.
This course will explore examples of how bioethical and policy decision-making can have different effectiveness in the context of modern pandemics, although illustrative and unique aspects of some pre-19th century and multi-era pandemics will be examined. Modules will explore how ethical, policy, legal and social challenges are responded to in the context of different pandemics and how they differ from similar decisions and processes in “peace time”. Bioethic
s
and related policy responses predictably arise before, during and in the aftermath of a pandemic.
In addition to bioethical concerns, including social justice, pandemic response raises policy, legal and social challenges, including: individual preference versus societal benefit, risk and opinion of individual harms, and changes in local and national laws. Policy response occurs at every level of government and within institutions: international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health (WHO, WOAH), national governments, state and local governments, health care and other institutions, healthcare providers and others. The impact of misinformation and disinformation on personal and political decision making will also be explored.
- M 4:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.
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Instructor:
Todd Weber
Info - 3 points
SPECIAL TOPICS IN CLINICAL ETHICS
SPECIAL TOPICS CLINICAL E
- W 8 p.m.-10 p.m.
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Instructor:
Margaret Goldenhersh
Info - 3 points
MASTER THESIS WORKSHOP
MASTER THESIS WKSHP (1 CREDIT)
TAKEN WITH BIET 5992 Master Thesis (2-credit).
The Workshop meets six times over four months. These sessions will assist students in starting to focus more fully on a topic and approach. During the Thesis Workshop, students will first speak informally for five minutes about a possible topic, followed by a more formal five-minute presentation and a draft of a one-page outline or abstract, proceeding to a more finalized outline or abstract. At each of these stages, students will receive feedback from the course director as well as fellow students.
- F 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
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Instructor:
Arthur Kuflik
Info - 1 points
MASTER THESIS (2 CREDIT)
Thesis requirement for Bioethics program. Taken with the Thesis Workshop (BIET K5991).
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Instructor:
Sameer H Ladha
Info - 2 points
INDEPENDENT STUDY
BIOETHICS INDEPENDENT STUDY
Various Independent Study opportunities available upon Program approval.
- 2-3 points
INDEPENDENT STUDY
BIOETHICS INDEPENDENT STUDY
Various Independent Study opportunities available upon Program approval.
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Instructor:
Sameer H Ladha
Info - 2-3 points