School of Medicine

Contacts

Course Co-ordinator:
Dr Heather Arnold
Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (IDEA CETL)
E-mail: h.arnold@leeds.ac.uk

Course Secretary 
Hayley Dodd
IDEA CETL Secretary
E-mail: h.dodd@leeds.ac.uk
0113 343 7799

Admissions Contact
Sarah Gelcich
IDEA CETL Deputy Manager
Email: s.gelcich@leeds.ac.uk
0113 343 7794

Overview

This course has now been successfully completed by more than 100 medical students, mainly from Leeds but also from Edinburgh, York, Newcastle and Birmingham. Student performance on the course has been excellent, and feedback very positive. The course aims to provide a grounding in ethics and bioethics, especially as they apply to medical practice and health policy. During the course we will explore the ethical issues surrounding clinical practice and technological advances in medicine, and consider questions such as:

• Is there a right to reproduce? If so, what does it involve and who has it?
• Does a ‘conscience clause’ adequately safeguard the rights of colleagues who object to abortion?
• US law permits sex selection of offspring for non-medical reasons; UK forbids it: which is right? Why?
• How should public health services be prioritised so that access is fair?
• Should smokers and drinkers be placed lower on waiting lists for treatment?
• Is it unfair to take age into account where choices have to be made – e.g. between candidates for transplants?
• How are we to make sense of the idea of the sanctity of human life?
• Can we justify compulsory treatment for some mental illnesses?
• Should patients with advanced dementia be ‘helped to die’?
• Is deliberate deception of a patient sometimes justified? If so, when and why?
• Should doctors nearly always put individual patient’s best interests above the interests of society? If so, why? What exceptions should be made? Why?
• Is the patient’s autonomy always an overriding consideration?

These and many more difficult and important questions often have to be handled by practitioners at moments of strain or when time is at a premium. This course allows for systematic study of the foundations for ethical practice and policy.

The course content is the same as the taught part of the highly successful MA in Health Care Ethics, run by the same teaching team, and now in its 19th year. Alternatively you may contact recent graduates, now in the fourth and fifth year of the medical curriculum, to hear of their experiences on the course (please contact Dr Arnold to be put in touch with one of these). All teaching now takes place in the state of the art rooms at the IDEA CETL (Centre for Excellence in Inter-Disciplinary Ethics). Student performance on the BA has been excellent with an outstanding attainment of II:1 and first-class degrees.

General Aims of the Programme

The aim of this programme is to enable medical students to think constructively about the ethical aspects of their current training and future careers by providing:

1. an understanding of key concepts (such as value, responsibility, rights, consent) which feature prominently in the practical decisions of health care professionals
2. a framework of philosophical theories within which to locate the day-to-day decisions of those who work in the area
3. an opportunity to develop the essential skills of discussion, analysis and argumentation in relation to ethical issues

Content of the Course

The course is currently organised into the following modules:

Semester 1

• Reasons, Virtues, Obligations and Happiness
• Consequences, Killing and the Value of Life
• Abortion, Euthanasia, Life and Death

Semester 1/2

• Current Developments in Health Care Ethics (double module)

Semester 2

• Conscience, Codes and Professional Issues
• Autonomy, Rationality and Psychiatric Issues
• Distributive Justice and Scarce Medical Resources

All the above are core modules but within each module students are given considerable scope to specialise in the aspects that personally interest them.

Learning takes place in lectures, discussions, individual and small group project work, exercises and reading. The students study alongside students from a mixture of relevant backgrounds (genetics, biology, philosophy, religious studies) as well, as qualified members of the health professions.

Students are closely supervised and are assigned a tutor responsible for their academic development through the course.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the programme students should be able to:

1. display knowledge and understanding of key concepts in ethical analysis
2. display knowledge and understanding of some main theories of ethics, and be able to apply them to practical medical dilemmas
3. identify the underlying issues in an ethical debate, to engage in reasoned discussion of ethical issues with people of opposing ethical views, and to construct a reasoned argument for a moral point of view.

Research

Each module will involve individual research into a particular relevant issue.  Students choose from a broad range of topics. The research will involve critical reflection on lectures, discussions and especially readings.  It will combine examining others’ views and working out one’s own position in relation to them. Students will be helped towards this end with exercises, assignments and feedback on essays.

Assessment

Each module will be assessed on the basis of an essay, and/or assignments, oral presentations or project work. There are no exams for this course.

Further Information
For further information about the course please contact Dr Heather Arnold at the details above. It may be possible to arrange to come and visit the IDEA CETL for one of the teaching sessions to get a flavour of the course, if so desired.

Please also visit the course website.