Topics: Multidisciplinary perspective on the limits of healthcare.
Disciplines: Medicine, ethics, political science, public administration.
Admission requirements:
This course is an (extracurricular) Honours Class: an elective course within the Honours College programme. Third year students who don’t participate in the Honours College, have the opportunity to apply for a Bachelor Honours Class. Students will be selected based on i.a. their motivation and average grade.
Description:
The achievements of modern healthcare seem limitless. Indeed, the dramatic increase in average life expectancy during the 20th century and the cure of many diseases by modern technology and medicines can be said to be one of society’s greatest achievements. At the same time, we are faced with the limits of healthcare in multiple ways. As societies grow more culturally diverse, will we maintain enough societal and political support for basic health insurance? Can doctors still perform their job when they are plagued by high administrative burdens? In an ageing society, is there a way to make healthcare financially sustainable? How do we make the healthcare sector environmentally sustainable? What is the responsibility of the patient themselves and which role does the government have in promoting health? And what can we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change about the boundaries of healthcare? This course will confront students with these and other limits of healthcare and look beyond the boundaries of disciplines to offer a more nuanced view of contemporary healthcare issues. This is important as healthcare is a complex sector in which not only pure facts, but emotions and normative perspectives play a significant role – on the level of the patient-doctor relationship, but also on macro-level governance and in political debates.
Throughout this course a total of nine interdisciplinary issues concerning the limits of healthcare will be discussed. Theory and practice will be connected in all the course meetings by interesting guest speakers, but also by the students themselves. Each week a different team of students will prepare the session by collecting interesting practical insights. We will consistently connect the limits of health care to the work of the doctor, civil servant, or other type of professional that students are studying to become.
Students will be challenged not only to acquire knowledge on contemporary healthcare issues, but also to look at these issues from different angles using skills and methods from different disciplines. Most notably students will learn from the ethics approach and write a short ethical analysis on a normative healthcare issue. For the final assignment students will be taught public administration skills and deliver a policy brief prepared in a group on one of the ‘limits’ threatening healthcare.
Course objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
understand the multifaceted role of healthcare in society by connecting normative and governance perspectives to (medical) care issues;
to explain how limits in healthcare impact the practice of (medical, governance and other) professionals;
to perform an ethical analysis on a health limit issue;
to analyze normative and policy perspectives of health-policy;
to write and present a policy brief on one of the limits facing healthcare.
Programme and timetable:
The sessions of this class will take place from 17.30 - 20.00 on the following Tuesdays:
Session 1: February 4, 2025
Introduction to Wicked Healthcare: Complex problems, different societal views and various actors. The micro, meso and macro levels of health governance
Session 2: February 11
Normative Aspects of Policymaking in Health Governance
Session 3: February 18
Systems and Citizens: Responsibilities of the State Healthcare Providers and the Individual
Session 4: March 4
Climate Change: Threat to Global Health and the Importance of Sustainability
Session 5: March 11
Limits to Collaboration and Public-Private Partnerships in Healthcare
Session 6: March 18
The Definition of Health: The Relation between Health and Other Societal Values
Session 7: March 25
Science, Policy-Advice and Policy-Making: A Relationship Untangled
Session 8: April 1
Appropriate Care: Ensuring a Future-proof Healthcare System
Session 9: April 8
Being Mortal: Boundaries to Life
Session 10: April 15
Beyond the Boundaries of Healthcare: Final Session (Presentations)
Deadline final assignment: 20 April 2025
Guest lecturers will be invited to speak in several seminars. Order of the lectures may be subject to change depending on the availability of the guest lecturers.
Location:
Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), room TBA
Reading list:
BBC Radio 4. The Reith Lectures. Dr Atul Gawande: The Future of Medicine, episodes 1-4
Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04bsgqn/episodes/guidePetrie, S. & Peters. P. Untangling complexity as a health determinant: Wicked problems in
Healthcare, Health Science Inquiry. 2020: (11), 131-135. https://doi.org/10.29173/hsi299Goshua, A., Gomez, J., Erny, B., Burke, M., Luby, S. et al. Addressing Climate Change and Its
Effects on Human Health: A Call to Action for Medical Schools. Academic Medicine. 2021;
96(3): p324-328. https://doi.org/10.1097/acm.0000000000003861
This reading list gives an impression of the literature we will read for this course. The definitive reading list with mandatory and recommended literature will be announced via Brightspace.
Course load and teaching method:
This course is worth 5 ECTS, which means the total course load equals 140 hours.
Seminars: 10 seminars of 2,5 hours = 25 hours
Literature reading: 5 hours/week = 50 hours
Practical work: 7 hours (preparation for one session in teams)
Assignments & final presentation:
Ethical analysis: 8 hours
Policy brief: 40 hours
Final presentation policy brief: 10 hours
Assessment methods:
All components of the class have to be graded with a grade ≥5.5 in order for the students to get a general Pass for the class. Please note: Attendance in this class is mandatory.
Students can only pass this course after successful completion of all partial exams. This entire course is eventually graded with a pass or fail.
The assessment methods will be further explained in the first session of the class.
Brightspace and uSis:
Brightspace will be used in this course. Upon admission students will be enrolled in Brightspace by the teaching administration.
Please note: students are not required to register through uSis for the Bachelor Honours Classes. Your registration will be done centrally.
Application process:
Submitting an application for this course is possible from Monday 28 October 2024 up to and including Sunday 17 November 2024 23:59 through the link on the Honours Academy student website.
Note: students don’t have to register for the Bachelor Honours Classes in uSis. The registration is done centrally before the start of the class.
Contact: Honours_class@lumc.nl