Health Justice
Volledige vakbeschrijving
Health research, care and promotion, and health service planning and delivery, present interesting questions of law and ethics. Equally, law and more often ethics pose interesting questions for health and life science conduct. These questions range from issues surrounding the substantive issues – for example, human embryonic stem cell work, new surgical procedures, the list of conditions routinely treated through the standard health insurance package – and more procedural issues, particularly about the changing relationship between health providers and healthcare consumers (health professionals and patients, as we used to say). These developments are regulated and governed within legal and ethical structures that require on-going negotiation within the cultural and political norms of our societies. Whilst healthcare delivery is traditionally seen as a matter for the domestic government, it is increasingly a matter of European Union (EU) and international concern – ‘global health’ is now a widely understood and accepted concept, and ‘health justice’ is a response to perceived health inequities.
Health Justice is a short course that completes the Health Law Minor programme. It enables students to consider issues in healthcare provision from a variety of ‘metamedica’ perspectives and to develop their ideas, building on the twin perspectives of the law relating to the life sciences and to public health and care. The aim is to give students a space within which to draw conclusions about the law and ethics of health, medicine and the life sciences, focusing particularly on the definition and normative goal of ‘health justice’. ‘Justice’ is not merely a descriptive term, it contains a moral imperative to action. This course is designed to encourage students across the GZW programmes to bring their studies together and look to their future contribution in health service.
Doelstellingen van dit vak
With respect to knowledge and insight, students acquire knowledge about:
- The philosophical underpinnings of health justice;
- The human rights agenda in health;
- Understanding global health; and,
- Law and ethics on a particular subject within health research, care, promotion and administration of the student’s choice.
With respect to application of knowledge and insight, students are trained to:
- Develop an understanding of practical philosophy and applied ethics;
- Build on their skills in using law and legal arguments in addressing health issues; and,
- Consider the relationship between politics, law and ethics in healthcare.
With respect to formation of a judgment, students are trained to:
- Apply a broad range of ethical and legal concepts in a policy area; and,
- Develop an understanding of how to adjudicate between different claims in policy making.
With respect to learning and communication skills, students are trained to:
- Build on their legal writing skills;
- Develop arguments in ethics and philosophy; and,
- Focus on poster writing.
Assessment
Poster Presentation
Each pair of students will be required to present their individual work on their poster to two examiners and the whole group on a specific date at the end of the course. The poster will be produced on a PowerPoint slide for projection in a lecture theatre.
Poster
The students work in pairs. Each pair is required to produce a scientific poster on their own research. Each has to identify the work in the poster that they have produced. The presentation will be for a maximum of 20 minutes, and the student is expected to outline the arguments they made in the poster and respond to any questions made by the examiners and the group.