Dr Tom Kerns
North Seattle Community College

 

Assignment for Week Five

The assignments for this week are similar to the last two weeks' assignments, except that this week we begin to consider ethical issues in public health more than those in clinical medical practice. The differences will become evident as you start to discuss these cases. You will stay in the same small groups and this week discuss and submit reports on two different groups of case studies. During the first half of the week your group will discuss the group of case studies in chapter 7 and submit a Group Report summarizing your discussion; and in the second half of the week you will discuss and submit a report on the group of case studies in chapter 12 and then submit a Group Report.

Here are the details:

Reading:

In Coughlin et al, Case Studies in Public Health Ethics, read:

  • The Preface and chapter 1
  • chapter 7, “Conflicting Interests and Research Sponsorship” (except you do not need to read or discuss case 7e on p 64).
  • chapter 12, “Studies of Vulnerable Populations.”
  • News article: "Kids denied monitors in AIDS drug trials," AP 5-5-05
  • Also read any other single chapter of your choosing

Writing:

Please complete your reading of chapters 1 and 7 by Friday if possible. Your assignment is to discuss the cases in that chapter on Friday and Saturday. Then on Sunday your group will submit a summary of its discussions on any of the cases and on the general topic of conflict of interest. Please use the Discussions Questions provided in the book at the end of each case to start your discussions. It will not be necessary to answer every single discussion question, but you should address at least one DQ from each case.

Your reading of chapter 12 and the news article should be completed by Sunday. Your assignment is to discuss the four cases in that chapter, plus the news article, on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday so that on Tuesday your group can submit a summary of its discussions on any of the cases and on the general topic of research in vulnerable populations. Please use the Discussions Questions provided in the book at the end of each case to start your discussions. It will not be necessary to answer every single discussion question, but you should address at least one DQ from each case.

And again this week your discussions will take place in your same Group folder. After discussing each chapter thoroughly, you will put together a summary of the main themes you have discussed. Your summary should include items you had agreement about and items you had disagreement about. You will post the summary into the Whole Class Group folder. Again, decisions about how that group report will be written, who will compose it, what it should say, etc, will be left to your own group.

Any discussing you might like to do of the extra chapter you read can be done right there in your small group discussion folder.

Again, everyone in class will be able to read (if they want to, it's not required) any or all of the other groups' discussions, but please post messages only into your own group, and to the whole class group.

This week is still a little light on the required reading (unlike some coming weeks), so you might take advantage of the time to work on your research project.