Postgraduate Course: Law & Medical Ethics (10-credit) (LAWS11278)

Course Outline
School	School of Law	College	College of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate)
Course type	Online Distance Learning	Availability	Not available to visiting students
SCQF Credits	10	ECTS Credits	5
Summary	An online course covering the fundamental aspects of contemporary health care and law, for health care and allied professionals. This course offers you the opportunity to gain a solid grounding in the 'fundamentals' of medical jurisprudence (e.g. the central and pervasive concepts and principles relating to consent, negligence, confidentiality and mental competence, among others), and to discuss the relationship between the law, ethics, and the practice of medicine. The course will be of interest to health care professionals, and those working in the health-related professions, wishing to acquire new knowledge and perspectives on the legal and ethical issues encountered in practice on a daily basis. Several critical questions will be covered, such as: 1. What is legally valid consent 2. What standards of care does the law expect of your profession 3. When is it lawful to withhold or withdraw medical treatment 4. When is it permissible to breach patient confidentiality 5. How have human rights changed the face of modern medicine By the end of the course, in addition to the stated learning outcomes, students will also be able to: 1. Give a critical account of the regulatory control of the medical profession, and the influences that structural issues have on broader questions of medical treatment; 2. Contextualise current issues in medical research in terms of the historic development of relevant codes and principles; 3. Understand and incorporate into practice the current and changing requirements regulating the medical treatment of mentally incompetent patients; 4. Constructively criticise the current safeguards, limitations and protections relating to genetics and reproduction.
Course description	1. Introduction to law & medical ethics 2. Consent to medical treatment 3. Refusal of medical treatment 4. Withholding & withdrawing care 5. Medical negligence 6. Patient confidentiality 7. Human rights & medical practice 8. Research & ethical approval 9. Mental capacity & mental health 10.Genetics, reproduction & the law

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites		Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	Please contact the distance learning team at escript.support@ed.ac.uk
Additional Costs	Students should have regular and reliable access to the Internet.

Course Delivery Information

Academic year 2015/16, Not available to visiting students (SS1)		Quota: None
Course Start	Semester 1
Course Start Date	21/09/2015
Timetable	Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info)	Total Hours: 100 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 78 )
Assessment (Further Info)	Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment)	Students must log in on a regular basis throughout the course, sufficient to have covered all modules; and they must contribute constructively to at least two discussions in most weeks. They will also be assessed on a written essay of 5000 words at the end of the semester.
Feedback	Students can expect to receive timely feedback on their assessment.
No Exam Information

Academic year 2015/16, Not available to visiting students (SS1)		Quota: None
Course Start	Semester 2
Course Start Date	11/01/2016
Timetable	Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info)	Total Hours: 100 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 78 )
Assessment (Further Info)	Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment)	Students must log in on a regular basis throughout the course, sufficient to have covered all modules; and they must contribute constructively to at least two discussions in most weeks. They will also be assessed on a written essay of 5000 words at the end of the semester.
Feedback	Students can expect to receive timely feedback on their assessment.
No Exam Information

Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to: Articulate the fundamental legal and ethical principles and concepts that inform and influence the practice of modern medicine; Reflect upon the role that concepts such as personhood, paternalism and autonomy have on health care professional duties, as well as on patient rights; Evaluate the central position of consent/refusal in medical care; in relation to different patients, including minors and the mentally incapacitated; Comment upon the concept of medical futility, and the legal and ethical elements relating to resource allocation, euthanasia and assisted suicide; Effectively assess the current systems of compensation for medical negligence

Reading List
JK Mason and GT Laurie, Mason and McCall-Smith's Law and Medical Ethics, 9th Edition, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Additional Information
Course URL	http://edin.ac/1IMAEL2
Graduate Attributes and Skills	Students will develop their skills and abilities in: 1. Research and enquiry, through e.g. selecting and deploying appropriate research techniques; 2. Personal and intellectual autonomy, e.g. developing the ability to independently assess the relevance and importance of primary and secondary sources; 3. Communication, e.g. skills in summarising and communicating information and ideas effectively in written form; 4. Personal effectiveness, e.g. working constructively as a member of an online community; 5. Students will also develop their technical/practical skills, throughout the module, e.g. in articulating, evidencing and sustaining a line of argument, and engaging in a convincing critique of another�s arguments.
Special Arrangements	This course is taught by distance learning.
Additional Class Delivery Information	This course is taught by distance learning.
Keywords	Not entered