Disclaimer: due to the coronavirus pandemic, this course description might be subject to changes.
Topics: multidisciplinary perspective on the limits of healthcare
Disciplines: medicine, ethics, political science, public administration
Skills: teamwork, presentation, ethical analysis, policy brief
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 new 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? 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 hugely important 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 eight interdisciplinary issues in ten sessions concerning the limits of healthcare will be discussed. Theory and practice will be connected in all the course meetings by interesting guest speakers and an excursion, 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 are free to discuss the topics on the basis of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Students will be challenged not only to acquire knowledge on contemporary healthcare issues (such as COVID-19, prevention, ageing, technology), 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 on one of the ‘limits’ threatening healthcare.
Course objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Explain the multifaceted role of healthcare in society by connecting normative and governance perspectives to (medical) care issues;
apply knowledge of the limits in healthcare to the practice of (medical, governance and other) professionals;
analyze an ethical healthcare issue;
create and present a policy brief on one of the limits facing healthcare.
Programme and timetable:
Timetable:
Course meetings will take place on Tuesday evenings, from 18.00-20.30
1. 6 October 2020
2. 13 October 2020
3. 20 October 2020
4. 27 October 2020
5. 3 November 2020
6. 17 November 2020
7. 24 November 2020
8. 1 December 2020
9. 8 December 2020
10. 15 December 2020
The program will look as follows:
Introduction in Wicked problems in healthcare: Complex problems, different societal views and various actors
Limitless Technologies: What to do (and what NOT to do) when everything is possible?Being Mortal: Boundaries to Life
Healthcare Governance: Dilemma’s between accessibility, quality and affordability
Policy and Professionals: The Boundaries of Regulation combined with an excursion (date to be announced) on how to write a policy brief at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS) / Council for Health and Society (Raad voor Volksgezondheid en Samenleving)
Where does the Patient end and the Human begin?
Active Citizenship: Responsibilities of the State and the Individual
Borders: Migration and Global Health
Boundaries of Solidarity
Beyond the Boundaries of Healthcare: Final Session, presentations of final project
Guest lecturers will be invited to speak in several seminars.
Location:
Course meetings will take place, if possible, at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC). The definitive locations will be announced in the course book. If the meetings can not take place in person, the meetings will take place digitally. You will be informed about this one week before the start of the course.
Reading list:
Gawande, A. (2014). Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company.
Huber, M. et al. (2011). How should we define health? British Medical Journal, 343, d4163.
Riasio, H., Puustinen, A., & Vartiainen, P. (2018). The Concept of Wicked Problems: Improving the Understanding of Managing Problem Wickedness in Health and Social Care. In Thomas, W., Hujala, A., Laulainen, S., & McMurray, R. (Eds.), The Management of Wicked Problems in Health and Social Care. Routledge.
Simpkin, A., & Schwartzstein, R. (2016). Tolerating Uncertainty – The Next Medical Revolution? The New England Journal of Medicine, 375(18), 1713-1715.
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: 9 seminars of 2,5 hours
Excursion: 1 excursion of 3 hours
Literature reading: 5 hours/week
Practical work: 6 hours (preparation for one session in teams of 2-3 students)
Assignments & final presentation:
Ethical analysis: 10 hours
Policy brief: 40 hours (teams of 3-4 students)
Final presentation policy brief: 8,5 hours
Assessment methods:
The assessment methods will look as follows:
20% Participation assessed continually through participation in seminars (including the practical work assignment via different working forms/multimedia resources, that is preparation of one of the sessions by a team of 2-3 students)
10% Ethical analysis on one of the ‘boundaries of health care’ in preparation for the policy brief, deadline: 20 November 2020
20% Presentation of the policy brief
50% Policy brief (teams of 3-4 students), deadline: 23 December 2020
Students can only pass this course after successful completion of all partial exams. This entire course is eventually graded with a pass or fail.
Please note: Attendance is mandatory.
The assessment methods will be further explained in the first session of the class.
Brightspace and uSis:
Brightspace will be used in this course. Students can register for the Brightspace page one week prior to the start of the course..
Please note: students are not required to register through uSis for the Bachelor Honours Classes. Your registration will be done centrally.
Registration process:
Enrolling in this course is possible from Monday 17 August 2020 up to and including Thursday 3 September 2020 23:59 through the Honours Academy. The registration link will be posted on the student website of the Honours Academy.
Contact: Honours_class@lumc.nl