Medical ethics

Members of the medical professions are repeatedly faced by ethical dilemmas in the course of their normal working lives.

For instance, is it right or wrong to “facilitate” the death of someone experiencing irremediable pain in the late stages of terminal illness?

How should scarce resources of time, money and skill be apportioned by medical practitioners and medical administrators between the diversity of medical needs that present themselves daily?

What are the rights and wrongs of being “economical with the truth” when telling patients about their medical condition? How much should the doctor’s view of what should be done and not done to benefit a patient over-ride the patient’s view?

All too often, issues such as these have been confronted somewhat tangentially and briefly during the training of medical, nursing and allied professionals, and tackled subsequently with uneasy pragmatism by practitioners. In particular, reasoned argument has not been encouraged in many traditional courses.

This popular course will be run online, with  live lectures and workshops and will be held in six one day modules on consecutive Thursdays and Fridays. It will cover the following topics:

• Day 1 - Introductory philosophical theory and theories concerned with duties and rights, maximising welfare and virtue ethics
• Day 2 - More introductory theory; the value of life and the scope of morality: religion and ethics in a pluralist society: the relation of law and ethics:  what can medical ethics learn from medical humanities?
• Day 3 - Health economics and medical ethics- it’s not all about money; truth-telling and medical practice; paternalism and respect for autonomy in medicine; doctors’ duty of care and UK law
• Day 4 - Practical aspects of clinical ethics; the four principles framework for commitments, analysis and communication in medical ethics and practice; moral argument about particular cases and an exercise in arguing against one’s own position
• Day 5 - ‘Empirical ethics and Research ethics- what can medical ethics learn from science and vice versa?’; Staying compassionate in medical practice and medical ethics ; Contentious issues in medical ethics – understanding the arguments: abortion: Contentious issues in medical ethics- voluntary euthanasia and ‘physician assisted dying’
• Day 6 - Justice  and health care; international  medical ethics- the World Medical Association perspective; human rights and medical ethics; trying to be fair in practice

For the schedule please click here .