HEL1029 | Healthcare Ethics & Law

Healthcare Ethics and Law is an optional seminar course offered to the students of the XIV Trimester as a foundational course to broader domain of Health Law.

The subject focuses on inter-disciplinary knowledge, interpretation and understanding. The learning in this respect has assumed crucial significance in recent times in our context. Ongoing deliberations both at intellectual and community level concentrating on social, political, economic and cultural facets revolving around Public Health, Tele-Medicine, Clinical Research, Organ transplantation, Health Insurance, Healthcare Technology to name few, have undeniably influenced much warranted paradigm shift from a narrowly construed “Medical Law” to a much needed and deserved landscape of “Health Law”. This shift is considered to be not only justifiable but also legitimate in its character. It is in fact fiercely advocated and accepted that concerns of `health’ as such, are not solely confined to `medicine or medicalization’. Hence, learning about “Healthcare Ethics and Law” in the broader social context of multiple competing perspectives continues to be a significant challenge.

Essentially, lecture presentations and interactive consultations shall constitute the dominant part of the teaching methodology.

Classes shall be held every Tuesday and Thursday from November 2020 to January 2021, with each class of 2 hours duration. The Course shall begin with basic concepts and will gradually progress to more concentrated fields of study in the sphere of Health Law. The following subjects constitute various modules of the Course, and will be covered in the same order:

I.             Healthcare, Social Context and Legal Response (2)

II.           Public Health and the Law (1)

III.         Doctor, Patient and the Law (3)

IV.         Clinical Research and the Law (2)

V.           Reproductive Autonomy, Surrogacy, Unborn, Birth and the Law (3)

VI.         Organ Transplantation and the Law (3)

VII.       Life, Life Support, Dying, Death and the Law (3)

VIII.     Health Insurance, TPAs and the Law (1)

IX.          Medical Tourism and the Law (1)

X.            Forensic Science and the Law (1)

XI.          Pharmaceutical Drugs, Devices and the Law (2)

XII.        Tele-Medicine and the Law (1)

In total, the Course would be covered in 40 Class hours!