BTHX 5325 | Biomedical Ethics
Sept. 8 - Dec. 16
This course examines contemporary issues in bioethics, focusing on practical issues that arise in clinical care, public health, and health policy settings. The course also introduces conceptual frameworks and methods to analyze these issues, though the emphasis will be on challenges faced by patients and their loved ones, health professionals, and policy makers, not on ethical theory. To fully understand and evaluate these complex issues, it is critical that we consider them from a diversity of perspectives. Hence, we will spend most of our time in class discussion, openly and respectfully listening to and engaging with each other in interdisciplinary/interprofessional conversation. Class meetings will be fully online via Zoom; no in-person meetings will be required.
This course has been approved for Interprofessional Education (IPE) credit for health professions students.
Course Objectives:
Upon completion of the course students should be able to:
- Describe basic ethics concepts and values relevant to bioethics.
- Identify and describe how ethics conflicts can arise and can be resolved in clinical care, research, and public health practice, with reference to certain cases as examples.
- Systematically and clearly analyze ethics conflicts in biomedical contexts using established conceptual tools or frameworks, and informed by interpersonal/interprofessional discussion.
- Propose and justify recommendations for action to resolve ethics conflicts that arise in a biomedical context.
These courses welcome learners from various disciplinary backgrounds and are open to graduate students, professional degree students, and upper-level undergraduate students from the University of Minnesota and other institutions. They are also open to learners who are not currently in degree programs but wish to take courses, so long as they meet course prerequisites.
Dr. Jaime Konerman-Sease, is a Clinical Ethics Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics where she teaches, provides clinical ethics consultation for MHealth Fairview, and researches in disability ethics, medical humanities, and religion.
Joel Wu, JD, MPH, MA, HEC-C, is a Center for Bioethics’ Clinical Ethics Assistant Professor and a senior lecturer in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. Professor Wu’s primary role is as a clinical ethicist for the MHealth Fairview system. He is a co-chair of the University of Minnesota Medical Center's Ethics Committee, co-lead for the clinical ethics consultation service for MHealth Fairview system hospitals, and member of the MHealth Fairview Ethics Council. Professor Wu also teaches courses at the intersection of clinical ethics, public health ethics, and public health law.