Ethical Issues of Decision-Making Processes in Biomedicine

The aim of this course is to provide students with an introduction to the discipline of bioethics - starting from a brief reconstruction of the different narratives regarding its origin, scope, epistemological status, and intended purposes - necessary to pave the way for understanding and learning the core content of the course.
This is constituted by the two following modules: i) clinical ethics and ii) research ethics.
In the Clinical Ethics module the following issues will be explained and properly discussed: models of patient-physician relationship; methodologies for addressing moral dilemmas and ethical disagreement occurring in the clinical setting; clinical ethics consultation and moral case deliberation; clinical ethics committees; telling the truth to patients.
In the Research Ethics module the following issues will be explained and properly discussed: human-subject research and its ethical tenets (informed consent; principle of clinical equipoise); ethical principles as well as biding and nonbinding regulations regulating human-subject research; conventional and unconventional research; therapeutic research vs. non therapeutic research.

By following this course, students will gain both substantive knowledge in bioethics and reasoning skills.
In particular, as to the former, students will acquire some basic knowledge with respect to the origin, scope, epistemological status, and intended purposes of the discipline of bioethics; the distinction between moral dilemmas and ethical disagreements; fundamental bioethics approaches (teleological, deontological, and mixed-method approaches); the definition, scope, main issues of clinical ethics and research ethics.
As to the latter, students will be able to exercise critical thinking and critical reasoning with respect to bioethics issues; learn to provide justifications for their positions; learn to distinguish between a consistent and an inconsistent moral reasoning.