BIH525: Introduction to Clinical Ethics

The module Introduction to Clinical Ethics is compulsory and occupies a prominent position in the programme's content. Its aim is to familiarise students with the basic principles of clinical ethics and their impact on hospital care, the physician-patient relationship, the currently dominant principle of patient autonomy and its critique, the principles of beneficence and justice within the framework of a set of principles of deontological origin. It addresses issues that those involved in clinical practice frequently encounter, such as the provision of information and informed consent for matters concerning the patient, the decision-making process, euthanasia, and the patient's advance directives in cases of inability to communicate with the treating physicians. Students will become acquainted with the basic concepts of autonomy and beneficence, as well as with instances of their conflict within the framework of clinical ethics. Informed consent will be understood in terms of its pivotal significance for the shift of clinical ethics from the Hippocratic beneficence model to the contemporary model of clinical ethics that gives priority to patient information and decision-making. Euthanasia will be analysed in terms of its problematic nature, which renders it a still 'heated' area of debate in the bioethical and legal context. Students will also encounter communitarian-virtue ethical theories and consequentialist-utilitarian approaches, which have gained increasing influence of late. The need for bioethical education of physicians in order to cope with dilemmas in clinical practice, and the role of bioethics consultants in this regard, will be highlighted. Finally, human rights as the foundation of clinical ethics will be emphasised. Assignments at the end of the module will set dilemmas simulating the role of clinical physicians in the hospital environment in cooperation with consultants.