Foundations in Health Care Ethics

Catalog description

The purpose of the health care ethics course for first year medical students is threefold. First, this foundational course is the first in a longitudinal approach to ethics instruction designed to teach students that ethics is not merely a set of rules nor an ancillary part of the medical curriculum that can be set aside when the ethics course is over. Rather, ethics is a central part of medical practice, including how one understands the goals and ends of medicine, how one sees a patient, how one interviews a patient, what are the ethical norms that govern the practice of medicine, and how to work through a clinical ethics dilemma. Second, the core ethics sessions instruct students the practical ethical standards (and some legal standards as well) that govern the practice of medicine. Emphasis will be placed on covering standards that are well entrenched and supported by wide consensus in.