Ethical Issues in Healthcare

After the module, a student:

• is familiarized with the main aims, objects and methods of applied bioethics and philosophy of medicine

• can critically read bioethical research papers

• possesses the ability to understand and interpret source literature on ethical dilemmas in medicine (biomedical research and healthcare)

• is able to analyse and compare the most important interpretations of key categories used in medicine, such as category of race

• has improved her/his intercultural communication skills

No prior knowledge of philosophy of medicine or applied bioethics is required.

Week 1: Introduction to the philosophy of medicine and applied bioethics

Week 2: Key concepts in the philosophy of medicine

Week 3: Definitions of health and disease

Week 4: How to measure wellness?

Week 5: The concept of fairness

Week 6: Who to save?

Week 7: Medical Nihilism and Covid-19

Week 8: Problems with reference classes 1

Week 9: Category of race in medicine 1

Week 10: Category of race in medicine 2

Week 11: Category of race in medicine 3

Week 12: Category of race in neuroscience

Week 13: Genome and Epigenome Editing

Week 14: The Ethics of Enhancement

Week 15: Summary and the closing discussion

READING LIST

(obligatory and additional readings)

1. Azar, K. M., Shen, Z., Romanelli et al. (2020).Disparities In Outcomes Among COVID-19 Patients In A Large Health Care System In California: Study examines disparities in access and outcomes for COVID-19 patients who are members of racial and ethnic minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. Health Affairs. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00598.

2. Birch, J. (2018). Animal cognition and human values. Philosophy of Science, 85(5), 1026-1037.

3. Bircher, J. (2005). Towards a dynamic definition of health and disease. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 8(3), 335-341.

4. Brady, K. J., Trockel, M. T., Khan, C. T., Raj, K. S., Murphy, M. L., Bohman, B., ... & Roberts, L. W. (2018). What do we mean by physician wellness? A systematic review of its definition and measurement. Academic Psychiatry, 42(1), 94-108.

5. Emanuel, E. J., Persad, G., Upshur, R., Thome, B., Parker, M., Glickman, A., ... & Phillips, J. P. (2020). Fair allocation of scarce medical resources in the time of Covid-19.

6. Giubilini, A. (2016). “Challenging Human Enhancement” in The Ethics of Human Enhancement: Understanding the Debate (eds. S. Clarke, J. Savulescu, T. Coady, A. Giubilini and S. Sanyal). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7. Lafferty, J. (1979). A credo for wellness. Health Education, 10(5), 10-11.

8. Koplan, J. P., Bond, T. C., Merson, M. H., Reddy, K. S., Rodriguez, M. H., Sewankambo, N. K., & Wasserheit, J. N. (2009). Towards a common definition of global health. The Lancet, 373(9679), 1993-1995.

9. Kyoko Akatsuka, Mitsuru Sasaki-Honda & Tsutomu Sawai (2020) Ethical Framework for Next-Generation Genome and Epigenome Editing, The American Journal of Bioethics, 20:8, 32-36, DOI: 10.1080/15265161.2020.1782524

10. Mackey, S. (2000). Towards a definition of wellness. The Australian journal of holistic nursing, 7(2), 34.

11. Mannelli, C. (2020). Whose life to save? Scarce resources allocation in the COVID-19 outbreak. Journal of Medical Ethics, 46(6), 364-366.

12. Malinowska, J.K. and T. Żuradzki. 2017. The practical implications of the new metaphysics of race for a postracial medicine: Biomedical research methodology, institutional requirements, patient-physician relations. American Journal of Bioethics 17(9), 61-63.

13. Malinowska & Żuradzki (2020) Non-Epistemological Values in Collaborative Research in Neuroscience: The Case of Alleged Differences Between Human Populations, AJOB Neuroscience, 11:3, 203-206,DOI: 10.1080/21507740.2020.1778126

14. Malinowska, J.K. and T. Żuradzki. (2020). The ethics of constructing reference classes: Biomedical research methodology and race. Manuscript under review.

15. Saracci, R. (1997). The World Health Organisation needs to reconsider its definition of health. Bmj, 314(7091), 1409.

Stegenga, J. (2018). Care and cure: an introduction to philosophy of medicine. University of Chicago Press.

16. Stegenga, J. (2018). Medical nihilism. Oxford University Press

17. Randall, R. M., & Rafferty, R. (2020). Philosophy problems become real during the COVID-19 pandemic. JBJS, 102(15), e88.

18. Roskies, A. (2016). “Neuroethics section 2: The ethics of enhancement” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed. E. Zalta).

19. Persson, I. and Savulescu, J. (2008). “The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement and the Urgent Imperative to Enhance the Moral Character of Humanity.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 25(3): 162-177.

20. Platt, L., & Warwick, R. 2020. Are some ethnic groups more vulnerable to COVID-19 than others? Retrieved from: https://www.ifs.org.uk/inequality/chapter/are-some-ethnic-groups-more-vulnerable-to-covid-19-than-others/.

21. Lee, S.S., J. Mountain, B. Koenig, et al. 2008. The Ethics of Characterizing Difference: Guiding Principles on Using Racial Categories in Human Genetics. Genome Biology 9 (404).

22. de Melo-Martín, I. (2018). “The Trouble With Moral Enhancement”, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83: 19-33.

23. Winsberg, E. 2019 "Putting races on the ontological map: a close look at Spencer’s ‘new biologism’ of race". Retrieved from: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/16053/.

24. Zack, N. (2003). Race and racial discrimination. The Oxford Handbook of Practical Ethics, 245-271.