PHI332 : Syllabus

Syllabus - Health Care Ethics

COURSE SYLLABUS Philosophy 332W: Health Care Ethics --A web based, junior-level writing course--

Welcome Audio

Contact: You may email George.Rudebusch@nau.edu or phone me at (520) 523-7091. Before contacting me, please check the VCC (Virtual Conference Center). Whenever a student has a question, it is likely to be shared by other students, and so I edit and post all your emails, with my answers, in the VCC.

Prerequisite: You need to be a junior (or senior), since this course will call upon reading and writing skills as well as common sense that you have already developed through liberal studies courses in your first two years of college. Prior coursework in Philosophy, especially logic and ethics courses, may make this course easier and less time-consuming for you, but this course assumes that you have NOT been trained in logic or ethics.

Download requirement: You will need about 120 hours of access to a suitable computer with MSWord.

Course description: You will write a minimum of 20 pages of revised prose on an issue, selected by you, in health care ethics. (Ideally, you will select a topic of particular relevance to your professional specialization or personal interest.) The final draft of this process will be an essay defending a thesis regarding that issue. (Ideally, this essay will be suitable for submission for publication in a suitable newsletter or journal in your area of professional specialization or interest.) The essay will demonstrate your ability to identify and evaluate arguments in health care ethics.

You will develop the necessary logical and ethical skills to write the essay by completing two modules on Argument Identification and one module on Argument Evaluation. These three modules give you practice with actual ethical issues in contemporary health care, such as the roles and responsibilities of medical professionals, informed consent, conflicts of interest, refusal of treatment, deciding for others, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, surrogate motherhood, cloning, and rationing health care resources according to merit. The second and third of these modules focus on the ethics of abortion and include discussion of the ethics of argument evaluation.

Course goals: This is essentially a how to and only incidentally a what is it class. The goal is the development of four essential skills in liberal studies: critical reading, critical thinking, ethical reasoning and effective writing, within the context of a junior-level writing course. As a junior-level writing course, the goal is for you to write 20 pages of revised prose.

Course structure: In a web-based setting, you will learn the relevant skills to write your assignments by working through the modules. The modules provide many, many exercises with answers. You should do enough of these exercises to gain the confidence you desire to take the quiz and write the stages of the essay. In addition, I shall give you personal feedback on each stage of your essay as needed, in order to help you with the next stage.

Assignments and grading system: You can earn a maximum of 100 points. You earn 5 points for each of four assignments simply by completing the assignment on time: (1) Topic Proposal, (2) Mail-In Articles, (3) First Diagram, and (4) First Draft with Second Diagram. Total: 20 points.

I shall give a letter grade to three assignments, converting these grades to points consistent with the following scheme: Quiz (10 points: A = 10, B = 9, C = 8 etc.), Midterm ( 20 points: A=19, B=17, C=15, etc.) and Final Draft (50 points: A = 48, B=43, C=38, etc.).

See Module 1 for the session of this course you are enrolled in for details and deadlines for these assignments.

Course grade: 90-100 points = A, 80-89 = B, 70-79 = C, etc.

Time required for this course: For a three-credit university course, the Arizona Board of Regents requires a minimum of 135 hours of course work, including class attendance. Since you have no classes to attend for this course, you should plan to devote a minimum of 135 hours to completing this course. Most students will find they need 135-150 hours work to earn the grade they desire.

Most of the students' time will be spent on Modules 2, 3, and 4 (about 30 hours each). In addition, there are the following:

• Managing web access: connecting to the VCC and the online reading room in Cline Library, successfully downloading modules from the web site, etc. (about 4 hours).
  
• Initial research to write Topic Proposal and find Mail-In Articles (about 10 hours).
  
• Taking Quiz (about 1 hour).
  
• Writing Midterm (10), First Draft (10), and Final Draft (10 hours).
  
• Total: about 135 hours.

Now is the time to take out your calendar or daily planner and budget your time accordingly, by referring to Module 1 for the session you are enrolled in. Managing your time effectively is the single most important factor for maximizing your success in this course. If you can budget your needed hours for study time when you are fresh and undisturbed, taking breaks every 50 minutes, then you will be pleased with how much you learn, what you write, and your grade. If you are forced to make time to do this course after all your other duties of the day have fatigued you and are robbing yourself of sleep, then your will be disappointed with what you learn, what you write, and your grade.

Extra credit. Earn up to 5 points by keeping a detailed Time Log of the amount of time you actually spend on each module and the other aspects of the course as listed here. To receive this extra credit, submit Time Log with the Final Draft.

 Required texts: Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, fifth edition, eds. John Arras and Bonnie Steinbock, Mayfield Publishing Co. Students must use fifth edition.

Make-up for late or missing assignments: Never without prior arrangement. See me if you think your case is exceptional.

Statement on academic dishonesty:

• You should receive no help of any kind in writing the quiz: any such help would be cheating.
  
• It is a wise and good practice in writing your essay to get as much help as possible in the form of research and conversation with others. However, only you may be the author of each stage of your essay.

Insofar as you use the ideas of others, whether published authors or conversation partners, give them credit. Insofar as you quote or paraphrase any writings, identify them. (See, e.g., Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, or any other style guide, for correct reference style.) Cheating on the quiz, falsely claiming authorship in the essay, or any other act of academic dishonesty, carries a maximum penalty of course failure for the first offense and expulsion from NAU for a second offense.

Collaborating with other students. Some students like to work on their own, while others perform better when they work with others. If you wish to work with others, try to connect with them on the VCC, in order to work together. You may find the VCC helpful for any of the following:

• Finding answers to questions you may have before sending me email.
• Discussing exercises in the modules.
  
• Picking a topic for your essay.
  
• Finding and sharing useful articles and other resources for writing the essay.
  
• Finding and sharing objections and replies to arguments for the essay.

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