Bioethics Course

Lesson 1 • Defining Bioethics and Its Scope

Clarifies what bioethics is, distinguishing it from general ethics and medical law. Grounds subsequent chapters by establishing shared vocabulary and disciplinary boundaries.

Lesson 2 • Historical Development of Bioethics

Traces key events that shaped bioethics as a discipline, from early medical codes to modern frameworks. Provides historical context essential for understanding why current principles exist.

Lesson 3 • Principles of Biomedical Ethics

Presents the four-principles approach: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. Demonstrates how these principles interact and sometimes conflict in practice.

Lesson 4 • Core Ethical Theories

Introduces consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics, and care ethics as analytical lenses. Students apply each theory to the same scenario to see how frameworks yield different conclusions.

Lesson 1 • Consent in Vulnerable Populations

Addresses consent challenges with children, cognitively impaired adults, and prisoners. Introduces assent, surrogate decision-making, and special protections for vulnerable groups.

Lesson 2 • Refusal of Treatment and Advance Directives

Explores the right to refuse treatment and mechanisms for expressing future preferences. Prepares students to navigate conflicts between patient wishes and clinical recommendations.

Lesson 3 • Philosophical Basis of Autonomy

Examines autonomy as a moral concept, distinguishing substantive from procedural autonomy. Connects philosophical grounding to the clinical obligation to obtain genuine consent.

Lesson 4 • Elements of Valid Informed Consent

Breaks down disclosure, comprehension, voluntariness, and decision-making capacity as necessary consent components. Students learn to evaluate whether each element is satisfied.

Lesson 1 • Genomic Data and Family Privacy

Addresses the unique ethical challenges of genetic information that implicates biological relatives. Students weigh individual privacy against familial interests and public health benefits.

Lesson 2 • Big Data, AI, and Ethical Data Use

Explores ethical issues in aggregating and analyzing large health datasets using artificial intelligence. Students evaluate fairness, transparency, and accountability in data-driven health systems.

Lesson 3 • Permissible Disclosures and Exceptions

Identifies ethically justified exceptions including duty to warn, public health reporting, and court orders. Students practice applying a structured decision process to disclosure dilemmas.

Lesson 4 • Ethical Foundations of Confidentiality

Establishes why confidentiality is a moral duty, not merely a legal requirement. Links trust in the therapeutic relationship to the obligation to protect patient information.

Lesson 1 • Core Principles of Research Ethics

Applies respect for persons, beneficence, and justice specifically to the research context. Students distinguish therapeutic from non-therapeutic research and their differing ethical demands.

Lesson 2 • Institutional Review and Oversight

Explains the structure and function of ethics review committees in protecting research participants. Students learn how to prepare and evaluate submissions for ethical review.

Lesson 3 • Research Integrity and Misconduct

Defines fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism and their consequences for science and society. Students identify systemic pressures that contribute to misconduct and strategies to prevent it.

Lesson 4 • Informed Consent in Research

Distinguishes research consent from clinical consent, emphasizing voluntariness and comprehension. Addresses special challenges in placebo-controlled trials and adaptive designs.

Lesson 5 • Vulnerable Populations in Research

Examines heightened protections required when enrolling children, pregnant individuals, and economically disadvantaged groups. Students evaluate inclusion and exclusion criteria for ethical adequacy.

Lesson 1 • Withholding and Withdrawing Treatment

Analyzes the ethical equivalence of withholding versus withdrawing life-sustaining treatment. Students apply the ordinary/extraordinary treatment distinction to realistic clinical cases.

Lesson 2 • Euthanasia and Assisted Dying

Distinguishes voluntary euthanasia, physician-assisted dying, and involuntary euthanasia with their distinct ethical profiles. Students evaluate arguments for and against each practice.

Lesson 3 • Palliative Care and Symptom Management

Presents palliative care as an ethical imperative, not merely a clinical option. Addresses the doctrine of double effect in pain management and sedation decisions.

Lesson 4 • Pediatric End-of-Life Decisions

Addresses the unique ethical tensions when patients are children unable to make autonomous decisions. Students examine parental authority, best-interest standards, and the child's emerging voice.

Lesson 1 • Health Disparities and Social Determinants

Examines how race, class, gender, and geography produce unequal health outcomes. Connects structural injustice to individual clinical encounters and systemic reform obligations.

Lesson 2 • Rationing Scarce Medical Resources

Presents ethical frameworks for allocating scarce resources such as organs, ICU beds, and vaccines. Students evaluate criteria including need, benefit, and fair innings arguments.

Lesson 3 • Priority Setting and Health Policy

Examines how health systems set priorities and the ethical processes that should govern those decisions. Students critique real priority-setting frameworks using justice principles.

Lesson 4 • Global Health Justice

Extends justice analysis to international health inequities, access to medicines, and research exploitation. Students evaluate obligations of wealthy nations and global institutions.

Lesson 1 • Genetic Editing and Human Germline Ethics

Analyzes ethical debates surrounding heritable genome editing, including enhancement and disease prevention. Students weigh scientific promise against risks of irreversible population-level change.

Lesson 2 • Human Enhancement and Transhumanism

Examines philosophical and ethical debates about using technology to exceed normal human capacities. Students evaluate arguments about authenticity, fairness, and the meaning of human flourishing.

Lesson 3 • Reproductive Technologies and Ethics

Addresses ethical dimensions of assisted reproduction, preimplantation diagnosis, and surrogacy. Students evaluate competing interests of prospective parents, donors, and future children.

Lesson 4 • Neurotechnology and Cognitive Ethics

Explores ethical issues in brain-computer interfaces, neural implants, and cognitive enhancement. Students examine mental privacy, identity, and authenticity in neurotechnology contexts.

Lesson 1 • Structured Ethical Decision-Making Models

Presents systematic models for analyzing bioethical dilemmas, including the four-box method. Students practice applying each model to ensure comprehensive, defensible ethical reasoning.

Lesson 2 • Multidisciplinary Team Ethics

Examines ethical dynamics within interprofessional health care teams, including role conflicts and moral distress. Students develop strategies for constructive ethical dialogue across disciplines.

Lesson 3 • Developing a Personal Ethical Framework

Guides students in synthesizing course learning into a coherent, personally owned ethical stance. Students articulate their framework in writing and test it against novel scenarios.

Lesson 4 • Case Analysis: Justice and Resource Conflicts

Applies justice frameworks to cases involving allocation decisions, equity gaps, and policy trade-offs. Students defend allocation recommendations using structured ethical argumentation.

Lesson 5 • Case Analysis: Consent and Autonomy

Applies consent and autonomy frameworks to complex cases involving capacity disputes and refusals. Students produce written ethical analyses demonstrating mastery of prior course content.