Medical Ethics and the Movies
Elizabeth Reis, Macaulay Honors College
Course Description, Spring 2017
Tuesdays, 5:30p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Email: [email protected]
Office hours: Tuesdays, 1:30-3:30 (call x2908 when you get to MHC) and by appt.
ITF: Maggie Galvan
Office hours: Fridays, 2:00-3:00 (email first) and by appt.
email: [email protected]
This upper division seminar considers major debates in bioethics in light of recent
scholarship in medical humanities, disability studies, and gender studies, drawing on
perspectives from philosophy, history, literature, sociology, and film.
From the question of informed consent to the very recent debates about genetic
engineering, this course examines some of the most important social questions of our time:
Should we experiment on human beings? Is there a difference between biomedical
enhancement and eugenics? How can we alleviate health disparities, particularly those
exacerbated by the history of medical experimentation and racial injustice? Should parents
be able to go to any lengths to try experimental treatments for their sick child? Whose
authority should prevail in medical decision making: the patient’s or the physician’s?
In analyzing the legal, moral, and philosophical debates that shape current public discourse,
this course invites students to approach complex moral issues through the lens of both
popular culture and scholarly analysis. Using selected films as well as readings and
discussion, we will explore moral and social concerns from a variety of perspectives. We
will approach the weekly films with these questions in mind: How is the issue under
consideration being presented to a mass audience? How might the film’s presentation differ
from or adhere to more scholarly bioethical considerations?
Watching the films will be part of your homework. Each week you will be expected to
view the required film and read the assigned material before our class meeting. All films
will be available on Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, etc. Depending on student interest and
room availability, we may view the films on Thursday nights in the screening room.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Class participation: This class will require active and sustained class participation, with
open and honest discussion. We will be covering material that may challenge your beliefs,
values, or conventional wisdom more generally. While you may not agree with everything
said, you owe it to each other to listen carefully and respectfully to other people’s views.
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Attendance: Because this will be a discussion-oriented class, you have to be here to
benefit. I cannot recreate the class discussion for you if you have to miss class. Absences
(as well as arriving late or leaving early) will negatively affect your final grade.
Rules: No computers, iPads, etc. are allowed in the class unless we are looking at the
reading together. Please no texting either.
Academic Integrity
All work completed for this class must be your own. If you cheat (hand in your friend's
work or copy directly from the internet or a book, etc.) you will (at the very least) fail the
class and your name will be registered with the University. For guidelines and the
Macaulay Honors pledge, see:
http://macaulay.cuny.edu/community/handbook/policies/honors-integrity/
Students with Disabilities
I will make every effort to accommodate students with disabilities. If you have a
documented disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course, please make
arrangements to meet with me as soon as possible. Please request that the Counselor for
Students with Disabilities send a letter verifying your disability.
Weekly Journals should be uploaded to the “journals” section on Tuesday morning before
12:00 noon. There are 13 weeks of Journal submissions, but you can take one week off (of
writing, not reading!) Your journals should discuss how the film deals with the ethical
issues presented in the reading.
If you do a beautiful job, incorporate all the reading, and thoroughly contemplate and
address the study questions, you will get full credit. If you complete all the journal entries
and receive full credit, you will get an A on this part of the course. If you only submit and
get credit for 11 you will receive an A- for this part of the course; 10, a B+; 9, a B; 8, a B-;
7 a C+, 6 a C and less than that a D or lower. If you submit fewer than 5, you will not pass
the class at all.
The quality of the submission counts too! In other words, this is your opportunity to
grapple with the readings, to question, to connect one week to the next, and to raise issues
that you’d like to see discussed in class. The journals aren’t formally graded, but I still
want complete sentences, though you don’t have to worry about making an
argument, having smooth transitions, and the like. If you only write about one of the
readings or you write about your opinions with no reference to the readings at all, you
won't get credit that week (though I may award partial credit.) I don’t have a page limit, but
I expect you’ll submit roughly 500-750 words. More is fine.
Film Presentation: Each week one student will choose a 4-minute clip from our
weekly film to jumpstart our class discussion. You should choose a scene that best
illuminates the central ethical dilemma in the film and prepare five questions for
group discussion in class.
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Final Paper/Presentation: I will pass out the assignment for this project toward the end
of the term. It will be due Tuesday, May 23.
Grades:
Weekly journal responses: 40%
Attendance and Participation: 20%
Film Presentation: 10%
Final Paper: 30%
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WEEK 1, January 31: The Birth of Medical Ethics
Film: Frankenstein(1931)
February 7: Doctor/Patient Relationships
Film: The Doctor (1991) (YouTube)
• Charles D. Aring, “Sympathy and Empathy,” JAMA, May 24, 1958, pp. 448-452.
• Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air (NY: Random House, 2016)
February 14: Research, Patient Care, and End of Life
Film: Wit (2001)
• D.P. Sulmasy, “At Wit’s End: Forgiveness, Dignity, and the Care of the Dying,”
Journal of General Internal Medicine 16 (2001): 335-338
• A.L. Back, R.M. Arnold, W. Baile, and J.A. Tulsky, “Approaching Difficult
Communication Tasks in Oncology,” A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 55 (2005):
164-77.
• NicoleM.PiemonteandLauraHermer,“AvoidingaDeathPanelRedux,”Hastings
CenterReport43(2013):20-28
• Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End
(2015), excerpt from Slate
February 21: The Social Needs of Disability
Film: The Fundamentals of Caring (2016) (Netflix)
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William Peace, http://badcripple.blogspot.com/ Search for “Inequities and
Wheelchair Repair
William Peace: Disability, Sexuality, and the Censorship of Atrium
AmericanswithDisabilitiesActof1990.AsAmended:www.ada.gov/pubs/ada.htm
Lennard Davis, Ed., The Disabilities Studies Reader, 2nd ed., London: Routledge,
2006), excerpt
M.S. Milligan and A.H. Neufeldt, “The Myth of Asexuality: A Survey of Social and
Empirical Evidence,” Sexuality and Disability (2001), 19, 2: 91-109
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February 28: Life-Prolonging Treatment in Minors
Film: Lorenzo’s Oil (1992)
• Ruth Macklin, “Personhood in the Bioethics Literature,” The Milbank Memorial
Fund Quarterly. Health and Society 61,1 (Winter, 1983): 35-57.
• Chris Feudtner, “The Breadth of Hopes,” NEJM 361 (2009), 2306-2307.
• Jerome Groopman, “Inflamed: The Debate Over the Latest Cure-All Craze,” The
New Yorker (November 30, 2015).
• American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics. Informed Consent,
Parental Permission, and Assent in Pediatric Practice. Pediatrics 95 (2): 314-317.
• Glenn Cohen, chapter from Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and
Ethics (NY: Oxford University Press, 2014)
March 7: Race and Health Care Disparities
Film: John Q (2002) (Amazon video)
• T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer
Health Care (NY: Penguin Books, 2010), 1-3; 28-45.
• Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Reinventing American Healthcare (NY: PublicAffairs, 2014),
95-124.
• Abenna Brewster, “A Student’s View of a Medical Teaching Exercise,” New
England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 329 (1993), 1971-1972.
• J.Z. Ayanian, P.D. Cleary, J.H. Keogh, et. al., “Physicians’ Beliefs About Racial
Differences in Referral for Renal Transplantation,” American Journal of Kidney
Diseases 43 (2004): 350-357.
March 14: Mental Illness: Consent, Competence, Capacity
Film: A Beautiful Mind (2001)
• P.S. Applebaum, “Assessment of Patients’ Competence to Consent to Treatment,”
New England Journal of Medicine 357 (2007): 1834-1840
• Rachel Aviv, “God Knows Where I Am,” The New Yorker (May 20, 2011).
• D.W. Brock and S.A. Wartman, “When Competent Patients Make Irrational
Choices,” New England Journal of Medicine 323 (1990): 1353-1355.
March 21: Football, Concussions, and NFL Doctors
Film: Concussion (2013)
• Glenn Cohen, Holly Fernandez Lynch, and Christopher Deubert, "A Proposal to
Address NFL Club Doctors' Conflicts of Interest and to Promote Players' Trust,"
Hastings Center Special Report (November-December 2016)
• Read the main article and all of the responses.
March 28: HIV/AIDS and Sexual Identity in Health Care and Research
Film: Philadelphia (1993)
• Tara Parker-Pope, “How Hospitals Treat Same-Sex Couples,” New York Times
(May 12, 2009)
• Jennifer Brier, “Marketing Safe Sex: The Politics of Sexuality, Race, and Class in
San Francisco, 1983-1991,” in Elizabeth Reis, American Sexual Histories (New
York, Blackwell, 2012)
• Lance Wahlert and Autumn Fiester, “Repaving the Road of Good Intentions: LGBT
Health Care and the Queer Bioethical Lens,” LGBT Bioethics: Visibility,
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Disparities, and Dialogue, special report, Hastings Center Report 44, no. 5 (2014):
S56-S63.
April 4: Teenage Sexuality, Ethics, and the Law
Film: Kids (1995)
• Laurie Abraham, “Teaching Good Sex,” The New York Times (Nov. 21, 2011)
• Madeline Zavodny, “Fertility and Parental Consent for Minors to Receive
Contraceptives,” American Journal of Public Health 94:8 (August 2004), 13471351
• Rebecca Vesely, “Teens Opt for Unsafe Sex, Not Parents’ Consent,” January 20,
2005
• “When Health Care Providers Refuse: The Impact on Patients of Providers’
Religious and Moral Objections to Give Medical Care, Information or Referrals”
National Women’s Law Center
April 11: Spring Break
April 18: Spring Break
May 2: Sex, Gender, Intersex, and Transgender
Film: XXY (2001)
• Chapter from Georgiann Davis, Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis (2015)
• Elizabeth Reis, “Disorder or Divergence: The Politics of Naming Intersex”
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 50: 4 (2007): 535-43.
• Thea Hillman, Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word), excerpts
• Matthew McCarthy, Elizabeth Reis, and Joseph Fins, “Transgender HealthCare,”
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (forthcoming)
• Brendan S. Abel, “Hormone Treatment of Children and Adolescents with Gender
Dysphoria: An Ethical Analysis,” The Hastings Center Report, special report
(2014), S23-S27.
May 9: Designer Babies
Film: My Sister’s Keeper (2009) (Amazon)
• Darshak M. Sanghavi, “Wanting Babies Like Themselves, Some Parents Choose
Genetic Defects,” NYTimes, (December 5, 2006).
• Brandon Keim, “Designer Babies: A Right to Choose?” Wired Science, March 9,
2009
• Yusuke Inoue and Kaori Muto, “Children and the Genetic Identification of Talent,”
Hastings Center Report 41 (Sept.-Oct. 2011).
• Mariana Do Carmo, “Child Autonomy and the Rights to One’s Own Body: PGD
and Parental Decision Making,” www.thebioethicsproject.org, Hastings Center
(2013)
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May 16: Individual Rights v. The Pubic Interest
Film: Contagion (2011)
• T. L. Beauchamp and J.F. Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 6th ed. (NY:
Oxford University Press, 2009) excerpt
• R. Upshur, “The Ethics of Quarantine,” Virtual Mentor 5(11): 1-3
• J. Harris and S. Holm, “Is There a Moral Obligation Not to Infect Others?” British
Medical Journal 311 (1995): 1215-1217
• Marcel Verweij, “Obligatory Precautions Against Infection,” Bioethics 19:4 (2005),
323-35.
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