Electives - Humanities in Medicine

Interprofessional Seminars in Ethical Values and Professional Life

Elective Number: 3518 (arranged)

Course Supervisor: Dr. Marcia Childress and Professor Ruth Gaare Bernheim

Designated Signer: Dr. Marcia Childress, 5361 Barringer

Duration: 5 evenings = 1 elective credit

Available: 5 evenings over the academic year, TBA by each seminar instructor (possibly in Sept, Oct, late Jan, early Feb, March & April) - This elective may be taken concurrently with other electives.

Time to Report: TBA

Place to Report: TBA

Typical day: TBA (2.5 hr. sessions)

Attendance: Attendance at elective activities is mandatory.

• Anyone who is ill or has a personal or family emergency must contact Student Affairs and the Attending on Service.
• Students are allowed to take off up to 1 day per week to interview between November 1 and February 1.
  • Specific days missed must be approved by the Attending on Service.

 Number of students per rotation: 10

Course Description: This seminar for senior medical and law students is designed to promote critical thinking, enhance professional students' understanding of ethical issues, address the broader ethical, moral, and social responsibilities of the professional—whether physician or lawyer—as citizen and practitioner, and foster interdisciplinary and interprofessional conversation on issues of common concern to medicine and the law.

The seminar is organized around readings from literature—especially, novels, short stories, plays, biography/autobiography, nonfiction—that raise questions about professional life and conduct or address broad themes or moral dilemmas that professionals encounter in practice and professional life. In class sessions, readings serve as springboards to rigorous reflective conversation about the texts and also about issues of ethics, values and professional life and the place of the professional in society and culture.

For 2008-2009, the seminar has TWO SECTIONS (A and B), one section enrolling six students from the School of Medicine and six from the School of Law and the other section enrolling four medical students and eight students from other graduate or professional schools. The yearlong seminar involves five class meetings of two and a half hours each, led jointly by faculty from Medicine and Law. Classes are held in the evenings in a professor's home. Students are expected to attend all seminars, read and thoroughly consider all assigned texts, and prepare for and actively participate in class discussion. Students provide/purchase their own copies of assigned texts. If a student misses a session, he or she must write a short paper about the text assigned for that session.

This description is a general overview. The instructor(s) will establish the schedule and particular requirements at the time of the course.