Rdg Grp: Bioethics: Cutting Edge Issues in Disaster and End-of-Life Settings

This class has been canceled.

Course Information

Registration Information

Meeting Times

Day Time Location
MON 1:15 - 3:05 pm JON 5.206/7

Evaluation Method

Type Date Time Location
Paper

Description

This is a one hour reading course that will meet two hours every other week.  It will focus on medical care in advances in heart disease and triage situations, and require a 8-10 page paper on each book.

The first book is Sheri Fink's Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (2013).  This recounts the dubious triage decisions made at a hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and the legal aftermath.  Gripping and shocking and superb insights into the role of law overseeing such decisions.

The second book is Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1987) by Ann Fadiman. This is a bioethics classic of a child with epilepsy and brain damage in a Hmong community in California, and the conflicts between a western medical care pediatric system aimed at donig what is best for the child, and a closed-knit community with their own customs and rituals for handing such illnesses.  The conflicts are wrenching and difficult, and illuminating for our views of the role of American vs traditional medicine.

Textbooks ( * denotes required )

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm Ravaged Hospital *
Sheri Fink
Crown
Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (optional)
Ann Fadiman

Instructors

Headshot of Robertson, John A. Robertson, John A.
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