UNIT 8 Principles of Biomedical Ethics Teaching Objectives
After learning Unit 8, Ss are expected to accomplish the following objectives:
Teaching Activities and Resources
Part 1 Reading
Text A
Lead-in
Suggested teaching plan
1.To draw Ss’ attention and to rai their awareness of the importance of
biomedical ethics, T is advid to relate the discussion of this unit to the real-world happenings. Before starting the class, arch the media for the latest news reports, either at home or abroad, about controversial events in medicine community or healthcare ttings.
2.Start the class by doing Task / Lead-in and relate the content of the video clip to
your findings in the pre-class arching.
Key to the task
2) Death
4) Patient rights
Script
Well, advancements in medical science have afforded us the opportunity to live decades longer than in previous generations. For every new possibility offered, we now face an equal number of challenges and we find ourlves confronting decisions that are unprecedented in human history. When does life begin? When should life end? How do we define death when we have the ability to keep people technically alive, or we should say, technologically alive long after their discrete body parts no longer function? Welcome to “Matter and Beyond.”I’m your host MaryLynn Schiavi. In this program we’re going to explore issues around medical science that are forcing us to define life, death, quality of life, patient rights, and confront the moral and ethical questions that ari when facing critical healthcare decisions.
3.Introduce the topic of Text A as a natural continuum of Lead-in.
Text Comprehension
Suggested teaching plan
1.Make good u of Lead-in video clip as it rves as a perfect introduction to the
topic of this unit. Elaborate on the connection of its content with the latest events in the real world. Naturally, ask Ss how medicine differs from other branches of natural science, especially when human subjects are involved in the rearch.
Here are some hints:
2.Analyze the text and lead Ss to discuss, integrating Task 2 / Critical reading and
thinking / Text A into analysis and discussion. The prentation topics should be assigned to individual Ss for preparation at least one week in advance. Ask other Ss to preview the text with the guidance of prentation topics.
3.Integrate Task 2 / Language building-up / Text A when a careful definition of
key terms is covered.
4. When analyzing the text, ask Ss to pay special attention to the ntences listed in
Language focus below.
5.If time allows, ask Ss to do Task 1 / Critical reading and thinking / Text A in
about five minutes. Check out the task by asking one or two Ss to read their answers. This is done to get an overview about the text.
Language focus
1.… described in a formal protocol that ts forth an objective … (P185, Para.
2)
t forth是动词词组，表示用清晰、具体的方式解释或描述，多用于正式的书面语中。
2.… demands that subjects enter into the rearch voluntarily … (P185, Para.
5)
enter本身有“进入”的含义，但这里enter into是动词词组，表示“参加（正式活动）”的意思。
3.Persons are treated in an ethical manner … (P185, Para.6)
person的复数形式为people和persons，日常用语中一般使用people。但在法律、官方或正式的书面语中，仍使用persons强调独立个体。
4. … to bear burdens and on the appropriateness of placing further burdens on
already burdened persons. (P187, Para. 13)
此句展示了burden一词的多种用法。burden用作名词时，bear burden表示“承受负担”，place burden on sb. 表示“对某人施加负担”；用作动词时，表示“使承受负担”，此处burdened persons指“承受负担的人”。因此，后半句的意思是“对已经承受负担者进一步施加负担”。
Supplementary information
1.informed connt
Informed connt is one of the most important concepts and issues in medical practice and biomedical rearch. Violation against it leads to malpractice conflicts or even litigation. Informed connt is shorthand for informed, voluntary, and decisionally-capacitated connt. The requirements for informed connt are bad on:
•Protection: It protects patients’ and participants’ health and welfare.
•Autonomy: The autonomous individual acts freely in accordance with a lf-chon plan, analogous to the way an independent government manages
its territories and establishes its policies.
•Prevention of abusive conduct: It rves as a bulwark against such deontological offens as assault, deceit, coercion, and exploitation.
•Trust: It can make a distinctive contribution to the restoration of trust.
•Self-ownership: Once an owner’s connt is given, the alleged proprietary prohibition on access and direct impact is removed.
•Non-domination: No one should be under the arbitrary control of another and the informed connt requirements help to prevent such arbitrary control.
•Personal integrity: It protects patients’ n of personal integrity.
2.Hippocratic Oath
I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the
gods and goddess, making them my witness, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art—if they desire to learn it—without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but to no one el.
I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability
and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a
suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy.
In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I will not u the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in
favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
Whatever hous I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of xual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
What I may e or hear in the cour of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to mylf holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear fally, may the opposite of all this be my lot.
Key to the tasks
Critical reading and thinking
Task 1
1)principle of respect for persons
2)principle of beneficence
3)protection of persons with diminished autonomy
4)do no harm
5)equal treatment of equals
6)involvement of prisoners as subjects of rearch
7)individual need
8)individual effort
