This course examines ethical and legal issues that arise in the provision of health care.
People face difficult questions in hospitals and other health care settings.
A patient may have to decide about undergoing a risky but potentially beneficial treatment. A physician may have to decide about disclosing a patient's information in order to safeguard public health. Making such decisions requires that patients, families and health care providers communicate with each other about intensely personal topics as a meaningful life , death, God and family. In addition, the decisions must be made within a complex network of federal and state laws, hospital policy and professional codes of conduct. Finally, medical care is expensive, and the U.S. payment system is a patchwork that displays fundamental disagreements on issues of distributive justice.