Postgraduate - UnitAPG5733 - Health care ethics

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2012 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

print version

6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Offered	Clayton First semester 2012 (Off-campus) Clayton Second semester 2012 (Off-campus)
Coordinator(s)	Assoc. Prof. Justin Oakley

Notes

Previously coded CHB5233

Synopsis

This unit aims to develop students' critical and analytical understanding of key ethical issues in patient care. The unit focuses initially on three main ethical principles, embodying the concepts of autonomy, beneficence, and justice. These principles are used to analyse and discuss a variety of broad ethical issues which arise in patient care, such as the allocation of health care resources, the justifiability of paternalism, breaches of patient confidentiality, in vitro fertilisation, and euthanasia. There is also some discussion of the role of health professionals, in relation to conscientious refusals to treat patients, and issues in family care giving.

Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students should have acquired the skills to:

Use a rigorous framework of principles of health care ethics to analyse and evaluate ethical issues in patient care.
Think critically about the key concepts involved in those principles.
Make informed judgements about the ethics of certain patient care practices, and use argument to defend those judgements.