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The faculty and staff of the Center for Ethics teach a number of courses each year, below is a sampling of the most recent:
This course introduces students enrolled in the School of Public Health
master’s program in clinical research to a variety of ethical topics and
considerations in research ethics. Topics include the ethics of clinical trial
design, role of placebos, research participant recruitment, informed consent,
research with special research populations, genetics research, IRB requirements,
and human embryos and stem cells. Taught by John Banja.
Since 1992, the Center for Ethics has assisted Emory's
research community in meeting requirements for ethics training by offering a
short course on the responsible conduct of scientific research. This course
meets the requirements for the National Institute for Health (NIH), as well as
for many other professional research and scientific organizations.
Graduate students and post-doctoral and clinical fellows in
the biomedical sciences, public health, nursing, and chemistry participate in
this course. The course addresses a range of issues, such as data management
and fraud, research with human and animal subjects, conflicts of interest, and
authorship attributions. The VIS course uses
real case studies encountered by researchers.
The one-credit-hour course is offered through the Graduate Division of Biological and
Biomedical Sciences and is currently led by Arri
Eisen. The website for this course can be found at: http://www.biomed.emory.edu/courses/courses_VIS.cfm
The Center for Ethics partners with clinical faculty from the School of Medicine in teaching this required third year course for medical students. The overall goal of this course is to introduce future physicians to the knowledge, skills, and moral attentiveness to enable them to carefully consider the ethical challenges that are a regular part of the practice of medicine. Ethics sessions are held in 5 departmental clerkships: Gynecology/Obstetrics, Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Surgery. Kathy Kinlaw and Dr. Nicolas Krawiecki, Professor of Pediatric Neurology, co-direct this course. The course covers core competencies in clinical ethics and engages students’ own experiences in caring for patients and families. System ethics issues, training issues, and organizational ethics issues are incorporated in many sessions.
Ethics faculty and clinical faculty, named as Faculty Fellows, co-teach each ethics session on site where students are caring for patients. Arri Eisen, John Banja, and Kathy Kinlaw serve as ethics faculty. John’s surgical section discusses a host of issues connected with medical malpractice including the nature of malpractice litigation, medical error, and conducting empathic conversations. 2006-2007 Clinical Faculty co-teaching in the course include: Dr. David Bower, Medicine at the VA; Dr. Mary Lynn Dell, Psychiatry; Dr. Jennifer Goedken, Gynecology/Obstetrics; Dr. Carl Hug, Anesthesiology; Dr. Nicolas Krawiecki, Pediatrics; Dr. Laura Martin, Medicine at Grady; Dr. Danielle Sara, Gynecology/Obstetrics; Dr. Mark Shumate, Medicine at the VA; and Professor Charity Scott, Health Law.
This seminar covers variable topics of special interest in
the field of Neuroscience and Behavioral
Biology. John Banja’s rendition of this seminar is a “neuroethics” course
that introduces undergraduates to a variety of issues inspired by or deriving
from the neurosciences. Topics include freedom of the will, the nature of the
self, cognitive enhancement, animal experimentation, and brain mapping.
Karen Trotochaud co-teaches this graduate nursing class with Dr. Lynda Nauright. This class is a required class for Master of Science in Nursing students. The purpose of this course is to develop ethical leadership skills in the multiple roles of advanced practice nursing. In the class we focus on professional integrity, ethical decision-making, and cultural openness. Through lectures, group discussion and interactive exercises the students examine the ethical and legal leadership responsibilities of the advanced practice nurse for influencing debate on issues of access, quality, and resource allocation in the current and emerging health system.
This course, taught by John Banja, presents a host of
ethical issues to students enrolled in the Physician’s Assistant Program. Topics include informed consent,
confidentiality, end of life, allocating health care resources, and medical
error.
An Interdisciplinary Graduate Seminar on Professionalism and
Professional Ethics, taught by Edward Queen and Nicholas Fotion (Department of
Philosophy). This course brings together sixteen law, business, philosophy,
public health (including a practicing physician), and advanced Emory College
students to address pressing questions, including, “What does it mean to be a
professional?” and “What are the ethics of the professions?” Perhaps more importantly the course attempts
to address what are the virtues or practices that a professional ought to cultivate
and how can those practices be cultivated?
While the professors push the students to think deeply about ethics and
ethical decision-making, they also constantly remind the students that ethics
involves action. An honest person is one
who acts honestly. A competent
professional is one who acts competently.
Unfortunately professionals can be tempted to act differently because of
fear, greed, social pressures, or any number of factors. In fact, one of the most telling elements of
the course so far has been the fact that the overwhelming majority of the cases
presented by the students have been based on contemporary news events. (I must say I had been overwhelmingly
successful in avoiding any knowledge of the Anna Nichole Smith case until my
students presented the issues from the will.)
Most importantly the students have been challenged to think
about their responses to issues that will be presented to them as professionals
and to do so in an environment that is dominated by individuals outside of
their own field or profession. Rather than
being confirmed in their ways of approaching the world, the students regularly
find their presumptions challenged.
Although a 7:00-10:00 p.m. meeting time could present its challenges the
students are engaged and engaging, struggling with the issues and working hard
to live into their roles as ethical professionals.
What are human rights?
Whence do they come? Is religious
freedom a human right? Are human rights
and religion compatible? Partners? Opposites?
These are only some of the questions with which students are forced to
struggle in Edward Queen’s “Special Topics in Religion” course. Through a
combination of lectures and guided discussion Queen pushes the students to
develop, articulate, and defend their understanding of human rights and the
role of religion as a human right.
Moving from the theoretical to the question of application the course
addresses pressing issues directly. It
examines whether one’s religious beliefs and practices should excuse one from a
generally applicable law. If so, all
laws or only certain ones and why draw the line in a particular place? (What if one’s religion demands human
sacrifice?) Students also confront the
question of whether one has the right not to have one’s religion insulted or
not to have one’s religious sensibilities offended. With the discussion ranging from the Stoic’s
understanding of natural law to an analysis of the Danish cartoons of the
Prophet Muhammad the course strives to deepen and expand students’ thinking
about religions’ relationships to human rights both as a human right to be
protected and defended and as a source for grounding and establishing human
rights.
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