Bioethics

This course investigates the ethical dilemmas and health law during pandemics. It covers various ethical issues regarding health equity, prevention, containment, cure, and management. In the US, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed health inequities that are propelled by racism and structural injustice. The course explores racial health disparities and the disproportionate and devastating impacts of the Covid19 pandemic on people of color, immigrants, and marginalized groups. It investigates how U.S. religious communities have understood the pandemic and responded to the pandemic. Writing assignments, group exercises, and a final project promote students to engage in health communication. Students examine various case studies and stories of marginalized groups by challenging many Eurocentric assumptions of mainstream bioethics today. Course topics may include race and health inequities, medical exploitation of African Americans in the US, disease stigma, vulnerabilities of essential workers, Covid19 and xenophobia, social distancing, wearing masks, stay-at-home orders, PPE shortages, disability and triage, surveillance technology governance, vaccine acceptance, immunity passports, and reopening schools and workplaces. The class design utilizes a participatory, student-centered approach to classroom learning. Course materials include films, news media, legal cases, and public health literature.

This course is an introduction to public health ethics in health policy and bioethics. It explores a broad spectrum of legal and public health contexts to demonstrate how religious and cultural factors affect health. Students analyze religion and culture as social determinants of health in various case studies. Case studies range from tobacco control laws to public health in religious communities. Course topics include vaccination, HIV/AIDS, sex education, racism and health, recreational use of cannabis, health of refugees, genetically modified organisms, drug pricing, gene patenting, PTSD, food policy, tobacco control, alternative medicine, and experiences with spirituality and healing. The class design utilizes a participatory, student-centered approach to classroom learning. Course materials include religious literature, legal cases, and public health literature.

This course examines Western philosophical and religious understandings of moral issues brought on by advances in health care, science and technology. In this course, students will learn the "Principles approach" to bioethics, as well as other ethical approaches to the difficult moral issues raised by contemporary medical science and its clinical applications. To that end, case analysis will be used extensively in this course. The course is designed to help facilitate connections for students between medical/scientific advances, ethics, religious values, and American public policy about technology and health care. Each class session will alternate between theoretical and medical/scientific considerations, and the concreteness of bioethical case analyses.

This course examines Western philosophical understandings of moral issues brought on by advances in health care, science, and technology. In this course, students will learn the "Principles approach" to bioethics, as well as other ethical approaches to the difficult moral issues raised by contemporary medical science and its clinical applications.

This course examines a variety of topics related to health law, public health policy, and bioethics. No prerequisites are required. This interdisciplinary course delves into the tension between the public health needs of the community and individual rights in law-based public health interventions by analyzing legal texts and case studies. Topics covered may include public health emergencies, mental health treatments, criminalization of HIV transmission and exposure, criminalization of drug use during pregnancy, embryo transfer laws, youth sports concussion regulations, confinement conditions of the incarcerated, HIPAA, GINA, organ donation guidelines, vaccine exemptions, forced sterilization cases, and drug patents. Students are expected to actively participate in discussions, debates, and role-playing exercises based on assigned readings. The course materials include legal texts, health law cases, public health literature, bioethics articles, feminist literature, and film.

This course delves into the ethical and social implications of emerging biotechnologies and the integration of AI in healthcare. The course examines the transformative role of cutting-edge biotechnological innovations and AI not only in healthcare but also in shaping human interactions and our understanding of human identity such as race. Key ethical topics explored may include AI applications in healthcare and biomedical research, AI caregivers, AI doctors, AI dolls, digital health, genomics and the implications of big data, deep brain stimulation therapy, neurorights and mental privacy concerns, pursuits of life extension and immortality, induced pluripotent stem cells, animal ethics in biotechnological contexts, and green bioethics. Students are encouraged to actively engage in discussions, debates, and role-playing exercises based on assigned readings and materials. These materials include a range of sources, including bioethics literature, legal documents, biomedical and science literature, films, podcasts, and videos.

BIOE 350 is an application of ethical principles and philosophical reasoning in the health care setting. The application of medical ethics to clinical situations goes beyond following standards of practice. This course will focus on clinical ethics and explore how it differentiates from the larger field of bioethics. This course will teach students to apply the foundational concepts of bioethics to a variety of real health care situations. Students will learn to think through and discuss the unique features presented by different health care settings. The course will familiarize students with the common responsibilities of a clinical ethicist including: consultation, education, and policy review/development. Students will analyze real clinical ethics cases, utilizing the four principles and the four-box method. This course will also focus on an exploration of health policy and its development, emphasizing social justice and human rights as providing the moral and ethical bases of policy.

This course is an experiential learning course that focuses on the practical application of ethical principles and philosophical reasoning in a clinical health care setting. This course provides the opportunity for students to learn how to identify and properly address ethical issues in the clinical setting, as well as to learn the "practical approach" to real-life clinical issues. Students split time between the classroom and the on-site hospital setting, taking information learned in different clinical settings and learning how to work through ethics issues. Students also learn typical duties of a clinical bioethicist including: consultations, education, and policy development/review.

This is the last, and thus capstone course required of all students who aim to attain the interdisciplinary Minor in Bioethics. Since the Integration Seminar enrolls seniors from a variety of majors, the primary goals of the course are two-fold: (1) for students to learn to process, synthesize and integrate the ethical implications of the courses they have taken toward the Bioethics Emphasis, and (2) for students to discover their post-baccalaureate "niche" in the scholarly community of Bioethics and the medical humanities. Weekly themes in medical humanities include: the history of medicine; literature, the arts, and medicine; philosophy and medicine; religion and medicine. Students will also have the opportunity to read classic primary texts in bioethics -- articles, books, and films -- from different sub-disciplines of the field, such as race and health care, medicine and technology, history of medicine, narrative medicine, end-of-life issues, and many more. In analyzing these texts, students will learn to explain why each one is regarded as a model in its field, and to process and articulate its relevance for one's own interest area within Bioethics and the medical humanities. The course builds upon students' own interest areas and acquired expertise as they undertake a capstone project that is presented to faculty members on the Bioethics Faculty Advisory Board.