Masters Course Schedule and Descriptions
Courses Descriptions
HCB 501 Compassionate Care, Medical Humanities, and the Illness Experience
Syllabus 2024
This course will introduce students to major interpretations of the illness experience,
to several classical biographical and autobiographical accounts of illness, and to
the important dynamic of compassionate care in the healing relationship. The patient-as-person
will be emphasized throughout, as well as the ways in which respect for and empathy
toward the patient impacts diagnostic accuracy, patient adherence, and patient and
professional satisfaction. Some emotional dynamics of the illness experience will
be addressed, such as hope, through the work of eminent physician-writers such as
Jerome Groopman, MD. The dynamics of medical mistakes and forgiveness will be explored
through psychiatrist Aaron Lazarre’s influential writings on effective medical apologies.
Some philosophical and metaphysical aspects of personhood and self-identity will be
introduced.
HCB 502 Landmark Cases in Bioethics
Syllabus 2024
What is a life worth living? How do we decide—and who decides—when to use medical
technologies such as incubators, ventilators, transplants and reproductive technologies?
This is an intensive introduction to some of the cases in medical ethics that have
changed the ways that we are born, cared for, and die in American hospitals. Examples
of topics include: vaccination and public health; eugenics and human subjects research
ethics; the right of privacy and health care; end-of-life planning and treatment;
women’s bodies and fetal rights; disability rights; religious beliefs and health care;
triage and allocation of scarce resources; mental illness and individual rights; global
clinical trials; and, bioethics and culture.
HCB 503 Traditions and Values in Bioethical Conflicts
Syllabus 2025
This course serves as an introduction to Western moral and religious traditions and
to the positions about killing, saving, and enhancing that these traditions have informed.
It explores the interface between religion and biomedical ethics and then delves into
specific issues in health care in light of more general normative concerns such as
justice, love, autonomy and rights, utilitarianism, self-sacrifice, gender, virtue,
and community. The issues with which the course deals address the plights of real
people, in the concrete, who come from particular backgrounds and whose set of values
may make them sometimes recalcitrant to possibilities that technology has made (or
is just now making) available.
HCB 504 Special Topic in Biotechnology
Syllabus 2018
Just because we can do it, does this mean that we should do it? This course takes
a focused look at controversial practices in health care settings, such as organ donation
and enhancements, which have been (and are continuing to be) made available with the
advancement of technology. Ought we to regard that which technology makes available
as uncontroversially good? If not, why not? What sorts of new issues regarding distributive
justice, autonomy, utility, and compassion are ours to consider carefully because
of the changing world in which we live?
HCB 510 Literature, Compassion, and Medical Care
Syllabus 2024
How does literature help us understand the nature of human illness and suffering?
Can written works of art, ancient and contemporary, that depict moments of compassion
and compassionate acts lay bare the moral, spiritual, psychological, and physical
reality of suffering? There is a long association between literature and medicine,
from the viewpoint of physician-writers, such as Anton Checkov and William Carlos
Williams, whose literary skills have eclipsed their medical backgrounds. Sherlock
Holmes and Doctor Watson were the creations of a physician-writer, Arthur Conan Doyle.
Physicians portrayed in literature, such as Dr. Bernard Rieux, in Albert Camus’ The
Plague, have also explored the relationship between patient and doctor, the nature
of healing. This semester-long course will study these relationships through reading
of poetry, drama, fiction, memoir, and essay and reflect on the nature of suffering,
the intrinsic human need for compassion, and the implications for health and healing.
HCB 511 Bioethics, Disability & Community
Syllabus 2022
Most people will experience disability at some point in their lives, and for some
it will shape their social, personal, family, educational, and employment experiences.
Viewpoints on disabilities which have emerged in policy and the broader culture have
been explicitly challenged by emerging communities of people with disabilities who
seek to speak for themselves and claim full inclusion in society. In this context,
bioethicists and disability scholars have found points of both common cause and stark
disagreement over issues such as neonatal and end-of-life care, the value and values
inherent medical decisions and their outcomes. These bioethical debates occur in the
context of debates over the rights of individuals with disabilities to self-determination,
accommodations for work and schooling, and the potential for people with disabilities
to make unique contributions because of--rather than despite--their disabilities.
This course will consider major debates in bioethics in light of recent scholarship
in disability studies, drawing on perspectives from philosophy, literature and narrative,
history, and sociology.
HCB 512 Altruism and Bioethics
Syllabus (Summer 2019)
What is altruism, and what are its evolutionary roots as a moral dynamic? What impact
does altruistic action have on the human agent? Does it impact flourishing and health?
When is it experienced as overwhelming by medical professionals? Where does altruism
fit within medical and nursing professionalism? How is it related to compassionate
care? What about the duty to treat in time of epidemic, auto-experimentation, pro-bono
medical treatment, high-risk provision of healthcare in time of conflict, healthcare
activism, and the commitment to the patient’s good as a guiding professional ideal?
How does the practitioner strike a balance between the care of patients and the care
of the nearest and dearest or the care of the self? How does altruism correlate with
pro-social behavior, happiness, and health?
HCB 513 Disease and Society
Syllabus
What is disease? How do the beliefs, politics, and economies of particular societies
shape how diseases are defined, experienced, and treated? In this seminar, students
will explore these questions by analyzing historical documents, scientific reports,
and historical scholarship. We will look at disease from multiple perspectives — as
a biological process, clinical entity, population phenomenon, historical actor, and
personal experience. We will pay special attention to how diseases have been recognized,
diagnosed, named, classified and counted in different times, places, cultures, and
settings based on different environmental and social conditions, medical ideas, diagnostic
technologies, and available treatments. The course will begin with a review of major
approaches to understanding the manifold relationships between disease and society.
The remainder of the course will view disease and society relationships through the
lens of specific issues, such as epidemic disease, consumption and affluence, globalization,
and risk.
HCB 514 Global Bioethics
Syllabus
Bioethics is an American invention. Ideas about medicine and morality, of course,
go back to antiquity and are documented as medical ethics in Europe, medical morality
in China, and under many other names in cultures around the world. Recently, the process
of globalization of ideas, medical practices, clinical trials, and migration of patients
has led to clashes of culture around issues such as the appropriate standards and
control groups for clinical trials, organ transplantation, brain death, and end-of-life
care. Issues of religion, morality, public policy, disability rights and policy, and
health system structure and payment all shape how particular societies decide to manage
divisive issues such as the beginning and end of life. This course will draw on a
growing literature on global and transnational cases, policies, and traditions in
the ethics of health, public health, and health care.
HCB 515 Health Policy, History & Ethics
Syllabus
Who gets sick? Who gets health care, what kind, and in what setting? This course covers
the major health policy issues of the United States today, including the health status
of the U.S. as a whole, the social and economic determinants of health, the role of
personal and public health services in affecting health, the organization and financing
of health services, and the multiple factors affecting health policies. We will explore
the evolution of the US health care system in the past century, and debates about
rights to health care or lack thereof, health disparities, conflicts of interest,
and the ethics of health policy and practice.
HCB 516 Ethical Issues in Human Reproduction
New technologies have modified human reproduction in numerous ways, raising profound
questions about the moral status of human life and the nature of parental and sibling
obligations. This course will investigate the values that attach to different relationships,
both familial and general. It will cover questions around the treatment of infertility,
surrogate mothering, the commodification of the body, and the elevated expectations
of familial obligations that correspond to new reproductive technologies.
HCB 520 Bioethics and Film
Syllabus 2023
Film and television, both fiction and nonfiction, capture many of the human tragedies,
challenges, and possibilities that are debated in bioethics books, articles, newspapers,
on hospital ethics committees, and in daily clinical care. This course will explore
themes of birth, death, hope, fear, faith, finitude, and resource allocation through
watching, analyzing, and reading about bioethical issues in visual media. The course
will draw on material from philosophical ethics to history, health policy and film
criticism to place these issues and their portrayals in context.
HCB 521 Clinical Ethics Practicum
Syllabus 2024
As difficult as settling abstract ethical issues in medicine may be, the delivery
of ethical care presents its own set of difficulties. This course aims to introduce
students to the practices hospitals employ to ensure the care they deliver meets the
relevant legal and moral requirements. At the end of this course, students will have
been exposed to many basic, and some advanced, aspects of clinical ethics theory and
practice. They will be able to identify, describe, and analyze ethical dilemmas in
clinical cases, and will develop an appreciation for the complexity and multi-disciplinary
nature of ethical dilemmas in clinical medicine and will be able to apply what they
have learned to assess ethical, social, and legal aspects of cases.
HCB 522 The Role of Virtue Ethics in Medicine
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and the role of virtue ethics are central to many religious
traditions including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, and the philosophical traditions.
Key virtues include honesty, courage, generosity, prudence, justice, compassion, benevolence,
loyalty, and hospitality. This course explores the real and potential role of virtue
on the development of virtuous physicians. The course's texts offer two diametrically
opposed views on the role of virtue in medicine, i.e., one is that virtue can be channeled
into the training of medical professionals, whereas the other is that bioethics has
extracted virtue from medicine. Through readings, documentaries, dialogue and active
leadership of sessions by students, the course will interrogate the claims as well
as possibilities for a role of virtue in medicine.
HCB 523 Special Topics in Medical Humanities
As with all multidisciplinary pursuits, the medical humanities project is characterized
by an ongoing negotiation among its practitioners over methods, scope and goals. This
course will examine, in detail, one of the latest debates within the field.
Syllabus- Winter 2021
Syllabus- Spring 2024
Syllabus- Summer 2024
Syllabus- Fall 2024
HCB 524 Special Topics in Bioethics
Syllabus- Fall 2023
Syllabus- Spring 2024
Syllabus- Winter 2022
Bioethicists are frequently asked to consider the ethical ramifications of new research
findings and emerging technologies as they arise. This course will examine one such
issue in close detail.
HCB 599 Capstone Course
Syllabus 2024
This course, to be offered in the Spring semester, is designed to satisfy the “special
projects” requirement of our program. The first part of the course will be devoted
to readings and discussions that further illuminate the methodologies of the interdisciplinary
field of medical humanities, compassionate care, and bioethics. Students will develop
an appreciation for the standards of high quality scholarship and research through
review of carefully selected readings. This will prepare them for the second part
of the course, where they pursue and present their own research based on the existing
literature. This “capstone” course will be highly collaborative, entail substantial
peer review, and be organized around the development of significant student projects
which are intended to represent the beginnings of publishable papers. Our entire faculty
will be involved in these projects according to their specific areas of expertise.
Outside Elective Information
Outside Electives- Policies and Recommendations as of January 2024