Medical Decision-Making: Ethics and Law
At the moment we have nine short courses available on the issues surrounding Medical Decision-Making: Ethics and Law. Each course walks you through the main issues, then leads you to a summary of these issues to consolidate your study and a short multiple choice quiz to check on your progress. As you will see it is anticipated that each course will take you on average around 3-4 hours to complete including the quiz.
We do provide further reading suggestions for those who wish to follow up areas of interest and you will get full access to the library including electronic journals to enable this optional further reading. This further reading is completely optional and you can complete the course successfully just by working through the online materials.
Approximate times shown below show the time we estimate it will take you to complete the course sucessfully including the quiz but excluding any further reading you choose to do.
You can now enrol anytime and will have a year to complete the courses which we estimate will take around 33 study hours to complete. Your years access means that if you want to complete this course early you can but you will still have access to the materials and all the further reading available through the library, e-journals and other e-resourses for the whole year. The cost of this package of courses in £600.
If you are Alumni of the University of Manchester we can offer you a 10% discount on the fee to reduce it to £540. To claim this discount contact Dr Rebecca Bennettt or Leanne Tuite for information about how to proceed.
To enrol on this course either contact Dr Rebecca Bennettt or Leanne Tuite or begin your enrolment by paying the fee at our estore site: estore Medical Decision-Making payment site. Once you payment has been made we will process your enrolment and provide you with your login details.
The nine courses provided in this package are detailed below:
Component 1: Introduction to Health Care Ethics and Law (6 study hours approx)
- Introduction to ethics and law: What is ethics?
- The relationship between health care ethics and law
- Ethical reasoning in the life sciences (including healthcare)
- What is moral philosophy?
- Doing bioethics: Introduction
- Doing bioethics: Applied ethics and scepticism
- Doing bioethics: The ethical tookit
- Doing bioethics: The usefulness of theoretical approaches
- Summary
- Optional suggested further reading
- Quiz 1
Component 2: Introduction to law and legal research (1.5 study hours approx)
- The legal system: An introduction
- Case law (also known as common law)
- Statutes
- International Law
- Case Law - Finding your way around the law
- Summary
- Optional suggested further reading
- Quiz 2
Component 3: The moral and legal importance of the principle of respect for individual autonomy (3 study hours approx)
- The moral and legal importance of the principle of respect for autonomy
- The ethical principle of respect for autonomy: further clarifications
- Paternalism versus respect for autonomy; ethical issues
- Summary
- Optional suggested further reading
- Quiz 3
Component 4: The importance of valid legal consent (3 study hours approx)
- The importance of valid legal consent: Introduction
- What is ‘consent’?
- The legal implications of treating without consent.
- The Tort of Battery
- The Tort of Negligence
- Summary
- Optional suggested further reading
- Quiz 4
Component 5: How much information is enough? (3 study hours approx)
- How much information is enough?
- Legal precedent: Battery
- Legal precedent: Negligence
- The current law
- Professional guidelines and conclusions
- Summary
- Optional suggested further reading
- Quiz 5
Component 6: Mental capacity, competence and consent (4 study hours approx)
- Mental Capacity, competence and consent: Introduction
- How does the law determine incapacity?
- Assessing capacity
- Treating adults who lack mental capacity to consent to medical treatment
- Mental Capacity Act 2005: Proxy consent and best interests
- Vulnerable Adults
- Summary
- Optional suggested further reading
- Quiz 6
Component 7: Refusal and withdrawal of treatment (3 study hours approx)
- Refusal and withdrawal of treatment: introduction
- Does the law recognise a right to refuse treatment?
- Advance Directives
- Childbirth and refusal of treatment
- Summary
- Optional suggested further reading
- Quiz 7
Component 8: Treating children and adolescents (5 study hours approx)
- Treating children and adolescents: Introduction
- Parental responsibility and young children
- Disagreement by those with parental responsibility
- Disputes between those with parental responsibility and medical staff
- Parental responsibility, religious and cultural issues and the Human Rights Act
- Adolescent competence
- Adolescent competence: The Family Law Reform Act 1969
- The capacity of a child under 16 to provide valid consent
- Assessing Gillick competence
- The extent of the court's power to determine the care of adolescents
- Summary
- Optional suggested further reading
- Quiz 8
Component 9: Confidentiality (4 study hours approx)
- Confidentiality: Introduction
- Why is confidentiality important?
- The duty of confidentiality
- Confidentiality: Important but not absolute
- Justifiable breaches of confidentiality
- Confidentiality: Legal and professional guidelines
- Confidentiality: Statute law
- Confidentiality: Making decisions about disclosure
- Confidentiality and children
- Confidentiality and genetic testing
- Summary
- Optional suggested further reading
- Quiz 9