Students

PHIX3041 – Rights, Equity and Health

2022 – Session 1, Online-flexible

General Information

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Unit convenor and teaching staff Unit convenor and teaching staff Convenor, Lecturer, Tutor
Mianna Lotz
By appointment
Lecturer, tutor
Wendy Lipworth
By appointment
Lecturer, tutor
Paul Podosky
By appointment
Credit points Credit points
10
Prerequisites Prerequisites
130cp at 1000 level or above
Corequisites Corequisites
Co-badged status Co-badged status
Unit description Unit description

Health is a universal human right, and the ability to live healthy lives and access healthcare when needed affects everyone. This course reflects the significance of health not only for those in clinical roles and the broader health sector, but all of us. It examines the relationship between equity, rights and health at the individual level (the rights and obligations of patients and providers), the institutional level (the forces that shape and inform provision of healthcare), and the environmental level (the interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental health).

Important Academic Dates

Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  • ULO1: Outline key issues in healthcare ethics
  • ULO2: Deploy ethical concepts and theories to relevant case studies
  • ULO3: Critically evaluate arguments relating to key topics in healthcare ethics
  • ULO4: Formulate and defend your own ideas with clarity and rigour
  • ULO5: Communicate written arguments clearly

General Assessment Information

NOTE: It is expected that students will complete ALL ASSESSMENT COMPONENTS in this unit. You do not need to have passed each assessment to pass the unit, but it is expected that all assessments are attempted.

General Submission Procedure: Written assessments must be submitted via TurnItIn at the correct link provided on the Unit iLearn site.  

Extensions: Extensions must be sought via the MQ Special Consideration application procedure, in advance of the due date. Extensions will only be granted for medical or equivalent reasons, supported by documentation (medical certificate or equivalent). Please note that workload in other units, and employment outside of university, will not be accepted as grounds for an extension.

LATE SUBMISSION POLICY: Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – ten marks out of 100 will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no assignment will be accepted more than seven days (incl. weekends) after the original submission deadline.  

Assessment Tasks

Name Weighting Hurdle Due
Reflective writing tasks 20% No 23:59 20/03/2022
Essay Preparation 15% No 23:59 15/05/2022
Essay 40% No 23:59 29/05/2022
Participation and engagement 25% No Ongoing

Reflective writing tasks

Assessment Type 1: Reflective Writing
Indicative Time on Task 2: 15 hours
Due: 23:59 20/03/2022
Weighting: 20%

 

Reflective writing tasks

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Outline key issues in healthcare ethics
  • Deploy ethical concepts and theories to relevant case studies
  • Critically evaluate arguments relating to key topics in healthcare ethics
  • Formulate and defend your own ideas with clarity and rigour
  • Communicate written arguments clearly

Essay Preparation

Assessment Type 1: Plan
Indicative Time on Task 2: 10 hours
Due: 23:59 15/05/2022
Weighting: 15%

 

Essay Preparation

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Formulate and defend your own ideas with clarity and rigour
  • Communicate written arguments clearly

Essay

Assessment Type 1: Essay
Indicative Time on Task 2: 35 hours
Due: 23:59 29/05/2022
Weighting: 40%

 

Students write an evaluative and independently researched essay on one of the topics provided.

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Outline key issues in healthcare ethics
  • Deploy ethical concepts and theories to relevant case studies
  • Critically evaluate arguments relating to key topics in healthcare ethics
  • Formulate and defend your own ideas with clarity and rigour
  • Communicate written arguments clearly

Participation and engagement

Assessment Type 1: Participatory task
Indicative Time on Task 2: 20 hours
Due: Ongoing
Weighting: 25%

 

Active engagement in online tutorial activities. Students are expected to be well-prepared and make a constructive contribution.

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Outline key issues in healthcare ethics
  • Deploy ethical concepts and theories to relevant case studies
  • Critically evaluate arguments relating to key topics in healthcare ethics
  • Formulate and defend your own ideas with clarity and rigour
  • Communicate written arguments clearly

1 If you need help with your assignment, please contact:

  • the academic teaching staff in your unit for guidance in understanding or completing this type of assessment
  • the Writing Centre for academic skills support.

2 Indicative time-on-task is an estimate of the time required for completion of the assessment task and is subject to individual variation

Delivery and Resources

Due to COVID-19 there will be a recorded lecture each week (which may be broken into 2-3 parts). In addition, External/OUA students will participate in weekly discussions on the Unit Discussion Board in iLearn.

Students are expected to complete at least 3.5 hours of unit reading and private study per week in this unit, additional to lecture listening and tutorial participation and any assessment preparation time.

REQUIRED READING: All required readings in this unit can be accessed via the PHIL3041 Leganto link on the unit iLearn site. Additional readings will be notified on iLearn and in lectures. The readings are compulsory reading for the unit. You will be expected to keep up with the readings throughout the semester, and succession tutorial discussion will required prior familiarity with the required readings.

 

Unit Schedule

Part I: The Rights and Duties of Healthcare Patients and Providers 

Week 1 (beginning Feb 21) – Introduction

  • No required reading.

Week 2 (beginning Feb 28) – Clinical decision-making Part I: Evidence-based practice

  • Guyatt G, Cairns J, Churchill D, et al. Evidence-Based Medicine: A New Approach to Teaching the Practice of Medicine. JAMA: the journal of the American Medical Association. 1992; 268(17): 2420-2425.  
  • Sackett DL, Rosenberg WMC, Gray JAM, Haynes RB, Richardson WS. Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn’t. BMJ. 1996; 312 (7023): 71-72.  
  • Ioannidis JP. Evidence-based medicine has been hijacked: a report to David Sackett. Journal of clinical epidemiology. 2016; 73: 82-86.    

Week 3 (beginning March 7) – Clinical decision-making Part 2: Centering the patient

  • Epstein RM, Fiscella K, Lesser CS, Stange KC. Why The Nation Needs A Policy Push On Patient-Centered Health Care. Health affairs (Millwood, Va). 2010; 29(8): 1489-1495.  
  • Lipworth W, Stewart C, Kerridge I. The Need for Beneficence and Prudence in Clinical Innovation with Autologous Stem Cells. Perspectives in biology and medicine. 2018; 61(1): 90-105.  

Week 4 (beginning March 14) – Conscientious objection by healthcare providers: Permissible or unjustified?

  • Schuklenk U, Smalling R. Why medical professionals have no moral claim to conscientious objection accommodation in liberal democracies. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2017; 43(4): 234-240.  
  • Sulmasy DP. Tolerance, professional judgment, and the discretionary space of the physician. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2017; 26(1): 18-31.  

Part II: Ethics and Justice in Healthcare Systems

Week 5 (beginning March 21) - Resource rationing and allocation in healthcare: Not 'if' but 'how?

  • Scheunemann LP, White DB. The ethics and reality of rationing in medicine. Chest. 2011;140(6): 1625-1632.
  • Dawson A, Isaacs D, Jansen M, et al. An Ethics Framework for Making Resource Allocation Decisions Within Clinical Care: Responding to COVID-19. Journal of bioethical inquiry. 2020;17(4): 749-755.  

Week 6 (beginning March 28) - Healthcare research ethics 

  • Emanuel E, Abdoler E, Stunkel L. Research ethics: How to treat people who participate in research. In: Kazdin AE, ed. Methodological Issues and Strategies in Clinical Research. 4th ed. American Psychological Association; 2016: 513-523.  
  • Kimmelman J. The Therapeutic Misconception at 25: Treatment, Research, and Confusion. The Hastings Center report. 2007; 37(6): 36-42.  
  • Lipworth W, Mason PH, Kerridge I, Ioannidis JPA. Ethics and Epistemology in Big Data Research. Journal of bioethical inquiry. 2017; 14(4): 489-500.  

Week 7 (beginning April 4) – Conflicts of interest in healthcare

  • Johnson J, Rogers W. Joint issues - conflicts of interest, the ASR hip and suggestions for managing surgical conflicts of interest. BMC Medical Ethics. 2014; 15(1): 63-.  
  • Blakely B, Williams J, Mayes C, Kerridge I, Lipworth W. Conflicts of interest in Australia’s IVF industry: an empirical analysis and call for action. Human Fertility. 2019; 22(4): 230-237.  

Mid-session break (April 11 – April 22 incl.)

Week 8 (beginning April 25) – Healthcare professionals and gender bias

**NB: Monday April 25 is Anzac Day Public Holiday. There will be no tutorials this week.

  • Hutchison K. Four types of gender bias affecting women surgeons and their cumulative impact. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2020; 46(4): 236-
  • Liang R, Dornan T, Nestel D. Why do women leave surgical training? A qualitative and feminist study. The Lancet. 2019; 393 (10171): 541-549.

Week 9 (beginning May 2) –  Epistemic injustice in healthcare

  • Fricker, M. 2007. “Introduction,” in Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  
  • Carel, H. & I. Kidd. 2014. “Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare: A Philosophical Analysis” 17 (4):  529 – 540  

Part III: Healthcare in Wider Context

Week 10 (beginning May 9) – Mad Studies: Rethinking Mental Wellbeing?  

  • Crichton, P., H. Carel, H, & I. Kidd. 2017. “Epistemic Injustice in Psychiatry” Psychiatry Bulletin 41: 65 – 69 
  • Russo, J. & P. Beresford. 2014. “Between Exclusion and Colonisation: Seeking a Place for Mad People’s Knowledge in Academia” Disability and Society 30: 153 – 157 

Week 11 (beginning May 16) – Infodemics 

  • Swire-Thompson, B. & D. Lazar. 2020. “Public Health and Online Misinformation: Challenges and Recommendations” Annual Review of Public Health 41: 433 – 451  
  • Donovan, J. 2020. “Concrete Recommendations for Cutting Through Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic” American Journal of Public Health 111 (53): 286 – 287.  

Week 12 (beginning May 23) – Health and Human Rights 

  • Arras, J.D. 2014. “The Right to Health Care” in The Routledge Companion to Bioethics, J.D. Arras, E. Fenton, Q. Kukla. 1 – 13.
  • Human Rights Watch (2020) Human Rights Dimensions of COVID-19 Response. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/19/human-rights-dimensions-covid-19-response 

Policies and Procedures

Macquarie University policies and procedures are accessible from Policy Central (https://policies.mq.edu.au). Students should be aware of the following policies in particular with regard to Learning and Teaching:

Students seeking more policy resources can visit Student Policies (https://students.mq.edu.au/support/study/policies). It is your one-stop-shop for the key policies you need to know about throughout your undergraduate student journey.

To find other policies relating to Teaching and Learning, visit Policy Central (https://policies.mq.edu.au) and use the search tool.

Student Code of Conduct

Macquarie University students have a responsibility to be familiar with the Student Code of Conduct: https://students.mq.edu.au/admin/other-resources/student-conduct

Results

Results published on platform other than eStudent, (eg. iLearn, Coursera etc.) or released directly by your Unit Convenor, are not confirmed as they are subject to final approval by the University. Once approved, final results will be sent to your student email address and will be made available in eStudent. For more information visit ask.mq.edu.au or if you are a Global MBA student contact globalmba.support@mq.edu.au

Academic Integrity

At Macquarie, we believe academic integrity – honesty, respect, trust, responsibility, fairness and courage – is at the core of learning, teaching and research. We recognise that meeting the expectations required to complete your assessments can be challenging. So, we offer you a range of resources and services to help you reach your potential, including free online writing and maths support, academic skills development and wellbeing consultations.

Student Support

Macquarie University provides a range of support services for students. For details, visit http://students.mq.edu.au/support/

The Writing Centre

The Writing Centre provides resources to develop your English language proficiency, academic writing, and communication skills.

The Library provides online and face to face support to help you find and use relevant information resources. 

Student Services and Support

Macquarie University offers a range of Student Support Services including:

Student Enquiries

Got a question? Ask us via AskMQ, or contact Service Connect.

IT Help

For help with University computer systems and technology, visit http://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/offices_and_units/information_technology/help/

When using the University's IT, you must adhere to the Acceptable Use of IT Resources Policy. The policy applies to all who connect to the MQ network including students.

Changes since First Published

Date Description
18/02/2022 Weeks 9-12 topics finalized (new staff added)

Unit information based on version 2022.02 of the Handbook