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Ethics and Equity in Health and Medicine (POPH30004)
Undergraduate level 3Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
About this subject
Contact information
Semester 1
rmcdo@unimelb.edu.au keblock@unimelb.edu.au
Melbourne School of Population and Global Health
OR
Currently enrolled students:
- General information: https://ask.unimelb.edu.au
- Email: Contact Stop 1
Future Students:
- Further Information: https://study.unimelb.edu.au/
Overview
| Availability | Semester 1 |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
What makes a good health professional? In this subject, students will explore and develop two central skills of health practice beyond technical expertise: ethical understanding and addressing social equity. Marginalisation and disadvantage have long impacted patients’ interactions with healthcare. Substantial inequalities in health continue today shaped by social, structural, and commercial factors. In this subject, students will learn about ethics and equity within the health sector, and the power of health workers to make changes when inequity has been entrenched into health systems and policies. Students will investigate a range of real-world case studies to generate insights into good healthcare practice.
The subject focuses on humanities and social science reasoning and impactful written communication. Overall, this subject encourages students to consider health beyond a focus on the individual body to encompass an ethical perspective grounded in community and societal factors.
This subject would be appropriate for any student planning a health professional career or other work in the health sector.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject, students should be able to:
- Identify ethical issues in a range of health settings
- Identify the social, structural, and commercial factors shaping health and health inequalities
- Critically reflect on ethical practice and human rights in healthcare in the context of historical wrongdoing
- Critically apply the four principles of biomedical ethics in an analysis of real-life scenarios
- Discuss the ways in which attributes such as gender, race, (dis)ability, ethnicity and indigeneity intersect with each other and corresponding forms of systemic discrimination to produce inequitable health outcomes
- Critically reflect on their own positions with respect to relative power, privilege and capacity for action
Generic skills
- Effective written communication for academic and general audiences
- Reasoning in humanities and social sciences
- Critical analysis of complex issues
Last updated: 14 November 2024