Medical Ethics

Catalog description

Introduces the student to ethical problems associated with the practice of medicine, the pursuit of biomedical research, and health care social policy. The course will explore such issues as: Is a physician morally obligated to tell a terminally ill patient that he or she is dying? Is society ever justified in enacting laws that would commit an individual, against his or her will, to a mental institution? Does society have a moral obligation to ensure that all its members have access to health care? To what extent, if at all, is it ethically acceptable to clone a human being? Under what conditions is human experimentation ethically acceptable?