Course No. 60120, Spring 2010, Tuesdays 3-5 pm
Open to all students
When it comes to our healthcare, the stakes are as high as it gets:
Who will live? Who will die? Who will decide? Who will know?
These are questions that center on issues of both moral principle and real world consequences. Our intense concern about them can be seen in our nation’s currently heated debate about the management, distribution, and financing of health care. This debate also serves to remind us of the ethical complexity of related issues involving everyday medical practice. Some of the toughest decisions doctors, patients, and hospitals have to make are about more personal matters like whether to provide specific controversial treatments and what weight to give to patient autonomy. These are issues that mark lives deeply and sometimes end them.
This course will examine ethical challenges relating to central issues in the practice and distribution of medical care. Examining both theory and application, we will look at issues involving end-of-life decisions, reproductive technologies, patient autonomy, resource allocation, and emerging technologies.
This seminar is taught at the University Park Campus. It will meet from 2:00 pm to 4:50 pm each Tuesday during the Spring Semester.
