Healthcare Ethics: Principles in Practice

• • The nature of ethical reflection and the sources of ethical theory
  • Theories of normative ethics
  • Healthcare, human dignity and the common good
  • Four contemporary principles of healthcare ethics: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, justice
  • Issues in professional role morality: the professional virtues
  • Issues in, and approaches to, healthcare resourcing
  • Minority and vulnerable groups: e.g., indigenous; migrant and refugee; rural & regional; disability; children and elderly; gender; mental illness; cultural and religious difference
  • Elective area focus chosen by students from several module options. This will include modules relating to the specified areas of ethics such as the following:
  • - Public Health and Advocacy
  • - Healthcare Research Ethics
  • - Emerging Healthcare Technologies
  • - Rehabilitation
  • - Mental Health
  • - Beginning of Life
  • - Counselling Ethics
  • - Healthcare Administration
  • - End of Life

In order to enrol in this subject, you must be accepted into one of the following degrees:

Additional requirements

No additional requirements

Contemporary healthcare practitioners can face a range of clinical and extra-clinical ethical challenges. Such circumstances require responses informed by critical reflection and moral deliberation to inform advocacy and action. On the basis of key theoretical frameworks in ethics, this subject provides a broad-based introduction to applied ethics in healthcare. The subject aims to support health practitioners in the application of principles of healthcare ethics to specific issues arising in their workplace settings, to promote the common good through serving the proper goals of healthcare practice.

The assessment has been designed to facilitate students’ movement through the learning of key concepts and theories in ethics in the early weeks, the application of such learning to the healthcare context in the middle part of semester, and to encourage a deep engagement with this learning in the context of their particular healthcare profession by the end of the unit. The multiple choice/ short answer exam (which is scheduled around mid-semester) is designed to meet the first need, ensuring that the students have a firm grasp of key concepts and principles in the field. The discussion board task is designed to facilitate higher order processing of this material in moderated discussion with peers. Finally, the integrative essay provides students with an opportunity to synthesise key learnings by applying them to their immediate work context as healthcare practitioners.

• Multiple Choice and Short Answer Test (30%)
• Discussion Board Posting & Reflective Overview (30%)
• Integrative Essay (40%)

For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).