PHIL 213: Medical Ethics Feminist Concerns in Medicine

***Subject to Change***

PHIL 213: Medical Ethics – Feminist Concerns in Medicine

Instructor: Chelsea Richardson

Course Meetings: May 16 – June 3, 11:30am – 2:20pm M-F in Burnett 120

Office Hours: Wednesday and Friday 2:30 – 3:30 in OLDH 1022

Course Description

Medical ethics concerns such issues as the duties of medical professionals toward their patients and rules of good conduct within medicine. This course will discuss these issues in relation to feminist concerns about race and gender. Insofar as the sick constitute one of society’s most vulnerable groups, sick persons who are also members of socially marginalized groups are an even more vulnerable subset. Arguably, given the general duties of medical professionals toward the sick, the wellbeing of the sick and socially marginalized should be of utmost concern to medical professionals. This course will explore the experience and treatment of marginalized peoples in medicine, investigate the ethical issues that surround certain marginalized groups, and help you develop theoretical approaches that incorporate concern for the marginalized.

Course Objectives

• Develop an understanding of the broad overview of normative ethical theories
• Develop an understanding of the barriers that marginalized groups face within medicine
• Be able to argue for a particular theoretical ethical framework
• Be able to argue for a particular course of action using empirical evidence together with a theoretical ethical framework

Required Course Texts

The Cancer Journals, By Audre Lorde (any edition will be fine)

All other required reading will be posted on the course Blackboard site

Assessments

Reading Quizes (worth 20% of the total course grade)

There will be daily reading quizzes usually consisting of a few multiple choice questions and occasionally some short answer questions.

Reading Journals (worth 20% of the total course grade)

You will be required to keep a reading journal where you will summarize and reflect on the texts and content of the course. For each day in class, I will ask that you reflect on that day’s readings and class content and your own questions and concerns with the subject material. Each entry should be no less than 250 words. These journals will be collected at the end of each week you will get credit for a journal entry if it meets the length requirements and shows engagement with the course content/readings. Basically, a legitimate effort to meet the specifications of the assignment will receive full credit.

Ethical Theory Test (worth 20% of the total course grade)

At the end of week 1 you will take a comprehensive exam consisting of bothe multiple choice questions and short essays. This is to ensure full comprehension of ethical theories that will be utilized throughout the course.

Paper 1: Arguing for a Theory of Ethics in Medical Practice (worth 20% of the total course grade)

This paper will be due on the final day of week 2. You will reflect on and endorse a particular ethical theory discussed in the course and argue for the adoption of that theory as guide for proper ethical reasoning in medicine. You must incorporate readings from the course and you may incorporate outside sources if you choose. All empirical claims must be substantiated with a source; all sources must be cited both in the text and at the end of the text in a bibliography. Please use the formal citation method appropriate for your discipline. The paper should be between 1000 and 1500 words.

Paper 2: Arguing from an Ethical Theory for an Application of Medical Practice in a Case (worth 20% of the total course grade)

This paper will be due on the final day of week 3. You will build on the research done for Paper 1. This paper should argue for a specific course of action in a case from the course readings. For example, in the case of medical professional’s conduct in treating Audre Lorde for breast cancer in The Cancer Journals, what did the medical professionals in this case do wrong? What made this conduct wrong? What would have been a better course of action in this case? Explain how this better course of conduct could be supported by the ethical theory endorsed in Paper 1. Again, you must incorporate readings from the course and you may incorporate outside sources if you choose. All empirical claims must be substantiated with a source; all sources must be cited both in the text and at the end of the text in a bibliography. Please use the formal citation method appropriate for your discipline. The paper should be between 1000 and 1500 words.

Attendance Policy

Given that this course is so short and that is covers a huge amount of material, attendance is mandatory. You may miss up to 1 class period without penalty. Any other absences, for which no doctors note (or other appropriate documentation) is provided, will result in a 10 point reduction of the overall course grade (so a 95 would become an 85, 85 would become a 75, etc.).

Late Work and Make Up Policy

I will not accept late work unless I have explicitly given an extension, or documentation of illness is provided which explains why the work could not be completed on time. There will be no make ups of quizzes or exams unless documentation of illness is provided which explains why the quiz or exam could not be taken at its scheduled time.

ACE Credit

** This course satisfies ACE Outcomes 5 and 8.

ACE 5

Use knowledge, historical perspectives, analysis, interpretation, critical evaluation, and the standards of evidence appropriate to the humanities to address problems and issues.

ACE 8

Use knowledge, theories, and analysis to explain ethical principles and their importance in society.

Academic Honesty

The UNL Student Handbook defines plagiarism as follows:

Presenting the work of another as one’s own (i.e., without proper acknowledgement of the source) and submitting examination, theses, reports, speeches, drawings, laboratory notes or other academic work in whole or in part as one’s own when such work has been prepared by another person or copied from another person. Materials covered by this prohibition include, but are not limited to, text, video, audio, images, photographs, websites, electronic and online materials, and other intellectual property.

Any instance of plagiarism will result in a failing grade for the course.

Course Calendar

Week 1: Ethical Theory

5/16

NO READING DUE

5/17

J.S. Mill – Hedonism

J.S. Mill – On the Subjugation of Women

5/18

Immanuel Kant – The Good Will and the Categorical Imperative

Journal Entry Due

5/19

Russ Shafer-Landau - Virtue Ethics

Journal Entry Due

5/20

Russ Shafer-Landau – Feminist Ethics

Ethical Theory Test

Journal Entry Due

Week 2: Racism in Medicine

5/23

Tamar Gendler - On the epistemic costs of implicit bias

Harriet A. Washington – The Black Stork: The Eugenic Control of African American Reproduction

Journal Entry Due

5/24

Harriet A. Washington – Profitable Wonders: Antebellum Medical Experimentation with Slaves and Freedmen

Journal Entry Due

5/25

Audre Lorde – The Cancer Journals

Journal Entry Due

5/26

Audre Lorde – The Cancer Journals

Journal Entry Due

5/27

Arina Grossu – Margaret Sanger, racist eugenicist extraordinaire

Paper 1 Due

Journal Entry Due

Week 3: Sexism in Medicine

5/30

Sandra Harding – The Science Question in Feminism

Journal Entry Due

5/31

Alice Dreger – Categorical Imperatives

Journal Entry Due

6/1

Leslie J. Regan – Private Practices

Journal Entry Due

6/2

Yurdakul et al – The organisational silence of midwives and nurses: reasons and results

Potterat et al – Women, forgotten by clinical research

Journal Entry Due

6/3

NO READINGS

Paper 2 Due

Journal Entry Due