Undergraduate Course: Contemporary Issues in Medical Jurisprudence (LAWS10165)
Course Outline
| School | School of Law |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course is designed to engage students with current live issues arising in the field of medical jurisprudence, being a disciplines which sits at the cross-roads between law, medicine and ethics and is concerned primarily with legal and social responses to advances in medicine, healthcare and related technologies.
The course is deliberately designed to be open and responsive to issues that are current at the time of delivery in any given year. Accordingly, only broad indications as to topics and subject matter can be given is a description such as this. Likely issues to be covered include:
(a) start and end of life
(b) human genetics and biotechnologies
(c) regulation of medical research
(d) human enhancement
(e) Avoiding Frankenstein futures
The main aims of the course are:
- To equip students with deep and highly-responsive critical faculties to address medical and technical advances where the legal response is as yet under-developed or manifestly inadequate
- To expose students to cutting-edge research approaches in medical jurisprudence allied to the work of the School of Law and its Mason Institute in order to develop appropriate skills for a new generation of medical lawyers and ethicists
- To explore new ways of critiquing, understanding and shaping our legal and social responses to advance in medicine, healthcare and related technologies.
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| Course description |
Given the deliberately open and responsive nature of this course, it would be inappropriate to attempt to give concrete topics. The topics will be chosen with the class in any given year under the oversight and direction of the course teachers. A broad indication of contemporary live topics will be introduced by the course teachers and it will be for students to decide amongst themselves which areas they would like to explore further. Suggestions and proposals will be invited from the students. Group interaction in this process will be encouraged and this will then be used as a means to take learning forward. Groups will be assisted to choose topics, develop materials, prepare to lead on seminar discussions, and to encourage mutual learning. The first few sessions will be led by staff as exemplars of the kinds of critical approaches and insights that can be explored. Skills development is central the course and will form an early part of the course interaction.
Thus, the overall outline of the course will have the following format:
Part 1 ¿ Skills development (weeks 1-4)
1. Introduction: the course, expectations, likely topics and possible groups
2. Final topics selection and group allocation confirmation (4 people x 6)
3. Key skills development in critical thinking: live staff example
4. Submission of preliminary reading lists from all groups and running order of groups selected at random
Part 2 ¿ Exploring contemporary issues (weeks 5-10)
Expectations for each seminar include:
a. Student-led seminar based on student-prepared reading material to be distributed in advance (hence topic and group selection in Week 2 and reading material distributed in Week 4)
b. Clear written allocation of responsibility within the group for preparation and delivery of seminar (decided and managed by group)
c. Full participation in discussion by all ¿ encouraged through participation assessment via student blogs
d. Clear objectives and conclusions to be prepared by group
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None, but Fundamental Issues in Medical Jurisprudence highly recommended |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None, but Fundamental Issues in Medical Jurisprudence highly recommended |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2015/16, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 30 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Assessment will consist of:
1. Group presentation worth 60% of the overall mark, which will involve leading the class on one seminar topic (to be chosen by the group). Assessment will evaluate:
- Content and structure of the seminar itself, including advance reading material distributed by way of handout;
- Clarity of division of labour and responsibility of tasks within the group;
- An individual reflective written statement (1 - 2 pages) on the division of labour and team work experience, showing an ability to distil clear conclusions from the experience.
2. Individual written blogs, worth 40% of the overall mark, which will relate to each seminar topic and will be maintained over the semester. |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- 1. Knowledge and Sources of Law:
- To identify both likely areas of law relevant to contemporary issues in medical jurisprudence as well as gaps or instances of inappropriate or over-regulation
- To build on understandings of fundamental areas of medical jurisprudence such as consent, confidentiality, human rights etc
- To consider international dimensions, including the growing importance of European regulation and international agreements
- To explore the limits of law in discerning appropriate social responses to new medical and technical advances.
- 2. Subject-specific Skills:
- To develop and apply critical thinking informed by ethical and social science analysis
- To apply said critical thinking to comment upon and critique of law¿s role and appropriate responses to contemporary issues in medical jurisprudence
- 3. General Transferable Intellectual Skills:
- Independent critical analysis
- Interdisciplinary understandings of common problems
- Problem-solving through reasoned and well-justified ethical and legal discourse
- Synthesis of complex information and ability to subject to informed critique
- To foster imaginative ways of unpacking and responding to contemporary issues in ways that do not necessarily follow or merely apply existing paradigms or legal constructs.
- 4. Key Personal Skills:
- Written and oral skills necessary to deliver the above
- Group working and interaction
- Intellectual development through interdisciplinary engagement
- Autonomous working and independent critical capacity
- 5. Subject-specific Legal and Ethical Values:
- autonomy
- critical self-reflection
- consideration of others
- academic integrity
- healthy scepticism
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Contemp Med |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Sharon Cowan
Tel: (0131 6)50 8000
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms Krystal Hanley
Tel: (0131 6)50 2056
Email: |
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