Literature, Medicine, and Ethics

Catalog description

Utilizes literature to highlight the humility, wisdom, perspective-taking, and professionalism inherent in good care-taking, reflecting a fusion of the humanities and medicine, with an eye toward confronting the ethical issues which arise upon encountering the suffering human being in need. The course brings you into the room of the one ailing, addressing the threat of dehumanization in the increasingly technological and bureaucratized world of health care. We will use a narrative approach to problem-solving and look closely at un- or only partially solvable moral dilemmas in which difficult medical outcomes seem imminent.