Medical Ethics and the Law

Catalog description

This course examines the interrelationship between ethical principles and legal frameworks in health care delivery. Through analysis of landmark case law, statutes, regulations, and real-world clinical scenarios, students explore how legal doctrine shapes, constrains, and sometimes enables ethical decision-making in medicine. Topics include informed consent and capacity, confidentiality and health information privacy, end-of-life decision-making and surrogate decision-making, allocation of scarce resources, reproductive and genetic ethics, public health imperatives, and emerging issues in biomedical innovation. Emphasis is placed on developing competencies in ethical reasoning, legal literacy, and interdisciplinary collaboration across clinical, administrative and legal domains. Graded on A-F basis only. Credit Hour s : 3