Ethics & Leadership in Health Care

Bridging Disciplines Programs allow you to earn an interdisciplinary certificate that integrates area requirements, electives, courses for your major, internships, and research experiences.

In the interest of educating thoughtful and responsible leaders, the Ethics & Leadership in Health Care BDP brings together resources from across campus to allow students to study ethical issues in health care policy, administration and delivery, and in medical, nursing, and other health professions. Courses explore the ethical and legal implications of controversial topics such as abortion, euthanasia, palliative care, scientific research with human subjects, technological innovation, and access to health care. Through the Connecting Experiences component of the BDP, you may work with community and professional organizations or bring your interdisciplinary expertise to faculty research.

Upon completion of 19 credit hours from the options listed below, you will earn a certificate in Ethics & Leadership in Health Care.

REQUIRED ETHICS AND LEADERSHIP COURSES: All students in the Ethics & Leadership in Health Care BDP must, in the process of completing their certificate requirements, take at least one course designated as including a substantial focus on Ethics (E) and at least one course designated as including a substantial focus on Leadership (L).

Note: Course descriptions available here are from a recent offering of the course, and they may not reflect the description for the next offering of the course.

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Forum Seminar Courses   (1 credit hours)

All students in the Ethics & Leadership in Health Care BDP are required to take a Forum Seminar. Choose one Forum Seminar Course.

ELHC Forum
BDP 101 Intro to Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies
This course will survey the nature and role of conflict and its resolution at various levels, from the global to the interpersonal, focusing on certain key challenges, such as great power conflicts, civil wars, ethnic conflicts, and urban struggles. We will study the use of conflict as a tool by change agents as well as efforts to resolve conflicts in the interests of peace, justice, and welfare. Special attention will be given to nonviolent campaigns for social change. We will read interesting accounts of various conflicts and efforts to deal with them, along with writings by change agents employing conflict. Class sessions will include presentations by experts from various fields in the University community and beyond.
BDP 101 Patients/Prac/Cul of Care
This course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of healthcare, and the many potential roles of the healthcare provider. This Forum Seminar offers an overview of foundational concepts for understanding healthcare and providers in an interdisciplinary way, including culture and health, the built environment and health, narrative medicine, and healer resilience in relation to serious illness and end of life care. Guest teachers will have expertise on those four topics and will represent the disciplines of Anthropology, Architecture and Planning, Social Work, and Health Communications. From this Forum Seminar, students will develop an overview of exciting developments in modern healthcare, and the innovative, creative leadership roles that healthcare providers play in this new era of contemporary medicine. Interprofessional teamwork in healthcare will be emphasized.
BDP 101 Narrative Leadership
Public narrative is a discursive practice that helps us construct identity and respond to social challenges. Leaders use it to link their own stories to stories of their community and to create hope as a catalyst for action. As an introductory course for the Ethics & Leadership Bridging Disciplines Programs certificates, this course will teach you to use interdisciplinary approaches to explore how public narrative can make you a more effective and ethical leader. Students will use behavioral ethics to examine public narratives that have brought profound social change to our country and work with the instructor to develop a public narrative that draws on their own lived experiences to address an issue important to them.

Foundation Courses   (3 - 6 credit hours)

Foundation Courses introduce key methodologies and issues related to Ethics & Leadership in Health Care. Choose ONE or TWO Foundation Courses. If you choose to complete two Foundation Courses, you will complete only 6 credit hours each of Strand Courses and Connecting Experiences.

Foundation Course
BDP 329 RACE AND MEDICINE IN AMERICAN LIFE
-E
This course examines the relationship between African Americans and the American medical profession from the era of plantation slavery to the present day. The course divides the history of this relationship into several periods: the era of plantation medicine during the antebellum period; the formation and propagation of ideas about African American health following Emancipation; the practice of segregated medicine up until the 1960’s; interactions between black and white physicians and the American Medical Association prior to and during the Civil Rights era; and the period from the 1960’s to the present. The course examines the persistence of medical racism in American medicine up to the present day.
CLD 301 Intro to Comm And Leadership
-L
The term leadership circulates widely in our culture. At the same time, the ubiquity of statements and texts on leadership make it difficult for us to critically evaluate the concept of leadership, the underlying values and ethics inherent in definitions of leadership, and the suggestions for how to be a “great” leader. The purpose of this course is to introduce different theoretical perspectives on leadership, focusing in particular on the role that communication plays in leadership and the relationship between ethics and leadership. Taking a communication perspective, we will ask and answer the question, what makes an ethical, effective leader? Additionally, focusing on communication as the lens to understand leadership asks us to pay attention to questions of powerand privilege.
CLD 321 SEMINAR COMM LEADERSHIP
-L
This course focuses on what leaders need to know how to do to be ethical and effective forces for positive change. Students will study concepts, frameworks, and theories related to a wide variety of skills that often vary based on the characteristics of the leader, the followers, and the context. Among the skills that will be studied are those related to making ethical decisions, communicating supportively to others, motivating and engaging others, leading teams, gaining power and influence, managing conflict, and leading positive change. Students will study cases that present perplexing leadership problems, and they will critically examine how exemplars of both good and bad leadership used these skills. The course will also focus on the value of good followership and its importance in the complicated interactions between leaders and followers
CLD 332 FACILITATIVE LEADERSHIP
-L
Explores facilitation and consensus-building in leadership in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors; how to engage stakeholders in powerful, productive, and prudent ways; and how to collaborate with team members to advance a leader's vision. Includes experiential learning with a local company, organization, or public agency. In this course, students will learn how to integrate facilitation and consensus-building into their work as leaders in the private, nonprofit, or public sectors; how to engage stakeholders (like employees, financial supporters, customers, and voters) in powerful, productive, and prudent ways; and how to collaborate with team members to advance a leader’s vision. The course will include opportunities to apply lessons from the course in real-life scenarios and design and help implement a collaborative process for a local company, organization, or public agency.
CMS 322E Communication Ethics
-E
This course examines the ethical issues involved in communication. How ought we to play our part in all of the interactions we are party to? How should the media cover issues of a sensitive or potentially harmful nature? How do our interactions with others reflect and shape who we truly are? We will build our examination of communication ethics from two fundamental premises: (1) we create the sort of person that we are through our actions and inactions, and (2) an ethical communicator is one who acts with integrity. We will examine the ethical theories of a variety of thinkers and consider what they have to say about the selves we are creating through how we communicate with others. We will also see what light they shed on the topic of living and communicating with integrity. Lively discussion will be encouraged by our frequent analysis of case studies. Additionally, students will be able to write a term paper on a topic of their choice in communication ethics.
HDO 365 BIAS
-L
An interdisciplinary introduction to bias from the perspectives of psychology, political science, business, philosophy and linguistics. In psychology, we will study cognitive theories of biased judgment and decision making, as well as work in social psychology on theories of persuasion, effects of group membership, as well as implicit bias. We will introduce ideas from the study of meaning in linguistics and philosophy of language to understand how some of these effects work, e.g. the notion of framing, and also to study the philosophical question of what it means to be neutral or biased. We will then apply these ideas in the business and political arena, looking at how groups of people behave as groups, and examining both how those groups can be manipulated intentionally, and how bias can creep into what is supposed to be an objective process.
N 321 Ethics of Health Care
-E
This course focuses on ethical issues in health care. Contradictions, inconsistencies, and competing views that lead to dilemmas in health care will be examined. Particular emphasis is given to the resolution of ethical dilemmas through ethical reasoning, ethical obligations in health professional-patient relationships, and just allocation of scarce health care resources. Required for nursing majors. This course has a substantial writing component. Course Objectives: At the conclusion of this course the learner should be able to: 1. Examine the complex socio-political, multi-cultural, economic, and technological factors which have helped create contemporary health care dilemmas. 2. Analyze the underlying premises and rationales of major comparative ethical theories. 3. Explore the resolution of selected ethical dilemmas through the use of models of ethical reasoning and decision making. 4. Analyze the interrelationship between ethics and law and the impact of judicial decisions upon health care practices and policies. 5. Trace the historical evolution of the concept of professional ethics in health care. 6. Analyze the ethical obligations and duties of health professionals which emanate from the nature of the caregiver-patient relationship. 7. Apply principles of ethical reasoning to the process of resolving ethical dilemmas. 8. Select and integrate appropriate research findings in the study of ethical issues related to health care.
PHL 304 Contemporary Moral Problems
-E
Philosophical examination of selected moral problems arising out of contemporary society and culture.
PHL 318 Introduction to Ethics
-E
What sort of life should I live? What kind of person should I be? What sort of actions am I obligated to do or required to refrain from doing? Such questions are in the province of ethics. They ask not how you have lived, or who you are, or what you have done, but how you ought to live, what sort of person you should be, and what actions you are required to perform or refrain from. Moral theory—one of the topics of this course—attempts to provide systematic answers to these questions. In this course, we will critically evaluate competing theories, as well as ask questions about the nature of ethics itself and of moral responsibility as well as questions about the discipline of ethics and those who participate in it.
PHL 325K Ethical Theories
-E
MAJOR TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY ETHICAL THEORIES DISCUSSED AND CRITICALLY EXAMINED. The course will deal with the development of major ethical theories from ancient to contemporary times. We will begin with Plato's Republic and his attempt to characterize the good "man" and the good state. We will proceed to consider the shift that took place with Augustine's focus on "will" rather than reason and his attempt to reconcile religious beliefs with Greek philosophical themes. We will then jump to the consideration of views characterizing debates in what has been characterized as the "age of enlightenment", reason and science (Hume, Kant, Mill) and proceed to Nietzsche's attack on previous philosophy and on "morality" in general. This will lead us to a consideration of his purported "nihilism" and to the "ethics of existentialism" (Sartre and Camus). In connection with the latter we will take up the dispute that arose between Sartre and Camus in the post world war II era over the justification of political violence.
R S 306C Comparative Religious Ethics
-E
The aim of this course is to examine and contemplate ideas about right and wrong, concepts of the good and evil, and ways of thinking about ethical behavior as they are expressed in different religious traditions. We will use a case study approach to compare moral ideas related to: sexuality and gender, social justice, the environment, and violence. In looking at these topics we will discuss a variety of issues such as homosexuality, abortion, capital punishment, just war, responses to the ecological crises, and the relationship of humans to the natural world. The course will focus on comparison across four broad areas of religious practice: Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Native American religions.

Connecting Experiences   (6 - 9 credit hours)

Your BDP advisor can help you find internships and research opportunities that connect Ethics & Leadership in Health Care to your major. We call these opportunities “Connecting Experiences” because they play such an important role in integrating your studies. Each Connecting Experience counts for 3 credit hours. You will need to complete at least two Connecting Experiences.

For more information and for examples of past Connecting Experiences, visit the BDP website and consult your BDP advisor. BDP students must propose Connecting Experiences to the BDP office. Current BDP students should view the BDP Advising Canvas site for Connecting Experience resources and proposal instructions.

Strand Courses   (6 - 9 credit hours)

In addition to your Foundation Courses and Connecting Experiences, you must complete 6-9 credit hours of Strand Courses, to bring your total credit hours toward the BDP certificate to 19 hours. You should work with your BDP advisor to choose Strand Courses that will focus your BDP on your specific interests, and that will provide you with an interdisciplinary perspective on your BDP topic.

In order to create an interdisciplinary experience, you must choose courses from a variety of disciplines. Only one of your Strand Courses may come from your major department(s), or from courses cross-listed with your major department(s).

Ethics & Leadership in Health Care
AHC 330 GREAT WORKS IN MEDICINE
"In keeping with spirit of Mortimer Adler’s Great Books of the Western World and Charles William Eliot’s Harvard Universal Classics, this course will thematically examine signature works in the history of medicine. This course meets the requirements of the Ethics Flag by directing the readings toward the issues and ethical dilemmas germane to medicine. To better understand the unique implications of the different areas of medicine, each week will entail reading a signature work that is representative of a key topic in the history of medicine (e.g. pharmacology, pathology, anatomy, surgery). After performing an analytical reading of a signature work in medicine, students will focus on discovering ethical principles in the text that have modern applications. This is an upper division course that also carries a Writing Flag. The writing assignments will consist of one long and one short research paper, graded online/class discussions, and peer review activities. The course is part of the Certificate Program in Core Texts and Ideas. Major Texts to be Studied: 'Hippocratic Oath'; Andreas Vesalius, 'On the Fabric of the Human Body'; Galen, 'On the Natural Faculties'; Rudolf Virchow, 'Cellular Pathology'; Dioscorides, 'Medical Material'; Soranus, 'On Gynecology'; Joseph Lister, 'On Antiseptic Principles'; Edward Jenner, 'An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccine'; William Harvey, 'On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals'; Benjamin Spock, 'Baby and Child Care'; Florence Nightingale, 'Notes on Nursing for the Laboring Classes'; 'Cassandra'; William James, 'The Principles of Psychology'; R. T. H. Laennec, 'A Treatise on the Diseases of the Chest and on Mediate Auscultation'"
AMS 311S Life and Death in American Cul
American attitudes about life and death have changed over the past two centuries, as a consequence of changing ideas about the body, health, and medical authority. From early surgeons and midwives to serial killers and funeral directors, this course explores the cultural history of the twin sciences of life and death in the U.S. By looking at the historical overlap and difference between medicine and funeral science, students will understand how social structures of race and class have informed and produced the seemingly natural practices of life and death in America. Our readings will draw from a variety of disciplines, including black studies, urban studies, cultural geography, and public health. We will consider questions such as: How did the science of medicine benefit from white supremacist social structures in the 19th and 20th centuries? What cultural role(s) have funeral directors and other handlers of the dead played over time? What can the geography and location of a cemetery or hospital tell us about the social value of certain spaces and bodies? The course will begin with an exploration of the foundations of both medicine and mortuary science, with particular attention to the role of death, race, and poverty in the development of medicine. Next, we will look at the geography of medicine and death—where cities locate their hospitals, doctors, and burial grounds—and think about what that has to tell us about the cultural meaning of death and sickness over time. Finally, we will consider the role of social justice and environmentalism in contemporary movements that work to change public health and burial practices. Students will be asked to produce a series of reading response essays, a take-home midterm essay exam, and a longer research paper that offers an analysis of Austin’s geographies of life and/or death.
BDP 329 RACE AND MEDICINE IN AMERICAN LIFE
-E
This course examines the relationship between African Americans and the American medical profession from the era of plantation slavery to the present day. The course divides the history of this relationship into several periods: the era of plantation medicine during the antebellum period; the formation and propagation of ideas about African American health following Emancipation; the practice of segregated medicine up until the 1960’s; interactions between black and white physicians and the American Medical Association prior to and during the Civil Rights era; and the period from the 1960’s to the present. The course examines the persistence of medical racism in American medicine up to the present day.
BME 320 INTL PERSPTS ON BME DESIGN-POR
This Maymester will prepare you to design clinically translatable solutions that consider the role of sociotechnical factors in technology adoption. The course will explore the design of computer systems for supporting medical decision-making through understanding of cognitive biases, how people develop expertise, and the current challenges in medical decision-making. This interactive course features discussion of scientific papers; interviews of healthcare professionals, both European and American; professional field trips (e.g., healthcare facilities); and writing, peer-review, and revision of a scientific proposal to design a new or improved system to support medical decision-making. Classes will be taught by UT faculty at the University of Porto. From its medieval winding streets and countless monuments, to its green spaces, rich culture, and active nightlife, Porto offers something for everyone. The goal of International Perspectives on Biomedical Engineering Design is to enable students to consider sociotechnical factors in designing clinically translatable solutions. Students learn human-centered design methods to understand the people for whom they are designing and to identify actionable problem statements. This Maymester 2019 course offering focuses on the design of health information systems for supporting medical decision-making.
CDI 355.1 Social Construction of Disability-Wb
The course explores the concept of disability as a “social construction.” by presenting some of the models and theoretical frameworks and past histories for understanding disability. This introductory course to the interdisciplinary field of disability studies provides an understanding of disability and people with disabilities from an empowerment model. Through directed reading and scholastic research, this course explores how attitudes, perception and portrayal of people with disabilities have contributed to discrimination, marginalization, or inclusion of individuals with disabilities. The course is designed for students who have an interest in disability studies including those students in social work, nursing, psychology, public health, kinesiology, neuro science, special education, communication science and disorder, human ecology, and pharmacy. Course assignments will allow students to investigate their own areas of interest in disability.
CMS 330 Interpersonal Health Comm
-L
Have you ever thought about... Why people keep secrets about their health? What it is like to date someone with a chronic illness? How doctors talk to their patients about death? What makes for a successful parent-child conversation about safe sex? All of these questions address examples of interpersonal health communication phenomena. In this course, you will become familiar with fundamental interpersonal communication processes that are involved in managing physical and mental health. Ideally, you will develop an awareness of how communication among friends, relatives, professionals, and others influences people's well-being, and how, in turn, health and illness shape communication and relationship dynamics. Topics covered will include patient identity, managing sensitive health information, social support, family conversations about health issues, and physician communication.
CMS 330D HEALTH DECISION MAKING
Messages about health can be confusing and frustrating at times, yet reassuring and motivating at other times. Family members offer suggestions for exercise, food allergies, and vaccines. Friends do their best to support each other through times of stress and mental health crises. Health care providers try to help us understand probabilities and risks involved in treatment. Advocacy groups work to educate people about social determinants of health. Creating effective, appropriate messages about health is challenging and important. This course is intended to help students learn about the connection between evidence-based health communication practices and evidence-based health decision making. Students will develop skills in making sense of complicated and ambiguous health information, and learn about theoretical concepts that describe and explain how people interact with such health information. Students in this class will also gain experience in analyzing effects of message strategies and will practice communicating about complex health topics in clear and compelling ways. By learning more about health communication research and practice, students will acquire knowledge that makes them better equipped and more empowered to make strategic decisions about both communication and health.
E 324L Literature/Health/Medicine
This course will explore literary representations of illness experiences, of health-provider experiences (e.g., doctors, nurses), and of health care as a system made up of institutions, policies, and people. We will also work to understand the role that the humanities, and literary studies in particular, already plays in the education of health professionals and what additional roles it might—or should—come to play in the future. How can the humanities help counter the effects of a U.S. health system increasingly centered on technology and driven by economic imperatives? How do the humanities help make doctors and other health professionals more attentive and empathic to their patients? How can time devoted to reading and writing promote self-care among over-stressed health professionals?
ECO 325K Health Economics
Examines the role and justification for government involvement in the medical care system. Subjects include the special features of medical care as a commodity, the demand for health and medical services, the economic explanations for the behavior of medical care providers, the functioning of insurance markets, federal health insurance programs, and regulation.
GEO 371T The Science of Environmental Justice
Environmental Justice (EJ) is the fair treatment and involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, in the development of environmental policies and regulations. Central to advancing EJ is understanding the physical, chemical, biological, and other environmental processes that lead to the inequitable impacts of environmental degradation. This course explores the scientific basis for understanding these inequitable impacts through lectures and case studies, including field-based investigations focused on water quality in Austin-area communities.
GOV 335I POLITICAL BIOETHICS
The still relatively new field of bioethics has developed two major, complementary branches: moral analysis and clinical application. Our course proposes a third branch that extends the first two with the argument that bioethics is a fundamentally political phenomenon, where the term politics refers to the contestation of different value-commitments and political “success” involves coping well with abiding disagreement. Bioethics thus involves decisions that cannot be “correct” —— but can be procedurally legitimate. Think of it this way: questions that can have correct answers (even in morally pluralist societies) may not require discussion in the public sphere; rule-following suffices. For example: “Would the subjection of humans to research techniques such as vivisection be ethical?” Such questions are not political. By contrast, questions that can only be answered in terms of the particular value-commitments of the deciders are political in that answers ideally would be generated through critical discussions —— not only among experts but among members of the general public. For example: “It is permissible to genetically modify humans to enhance normal capabilities?” By experts I mean scientists (who can answer technical questions such as: Is genome editing possible with precision sufficient to create genetically modified babies? I also mean physicians (who can determine if any medical needs are so compelling as to outweigh the risks). But neither type of expert can address the kinds of questions that a political community (no matter how diverse or fragmented) ideally would contribute to, questions such as: Who has the right to decide? Might routine genome editing alter human societies? Are there dangers of exacerbating already existing social inequalities (the better-off would have greater access), or of economic forces (from “genetic marketplaces” to “genetic fashions”)? This specifically political bioethics proposes that bioethics should aspire to become a democratic project that involves ordinary citizens as far as reasonably possible. We read nine authors, in each case focusing on three issues: (i) the fundamental tension between the twin commitments to truth and justice; (ii) the limits of biotechnology’s potential to contribute to social justice; and (iii) the question: How can we determine guidelines, acceptable to many members of any given community, as to when the subjective preferences of parents and others should be honored, and when they should not, and for what reasons?
GOV 355M GOVT RESPONSES TO COVID-19-WB
This course is a collaboration between UT and Sciences Po Lyon. It will be open to 25 UT students and 25 Sciences Po Lyon students. Group work and interactions between French and American students will be mandatory. All instructions will be done via Zoom and in English, though fluency in other languages maybe helpful (but not at all required). The objective of this course is to give students a thorough understanding of COVID-19 through a public policy lens. How have different governments at various levels reacted to the global pandemic? What are the public health and economic consequences? How has the political discourse shaped public policy on the issue? How has the public policy affected the spread of the virus? How has the vaccine development and rollout gone? We will provide a framework for perspectives and answers that extend beyond the personal or even local, to consider the virus and the public policies that attempted to contain it in a more global way. While nothing like COVID19 has happened in at least the last 100 years, the disciplines of political science and public policy have provided us with a framework to understand the corona virus situation a bit more than the popular media suggests. With this orientation, we will provide a front-row seat to all participants on how the framework and findings from these disciplines change as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic caused by this virus provides the academy with an incredible opportunity to evaluate government actions even as the consequences continue to unfold. While the COVID-19 crisis has ramifications in lots of disciplines, this course will focus on how the governments – at various levels and around the globe – responded to the pandemic. While our focus will be on the responses of the United States and France, we will place both of these countries in a broader perspective in order to evaluate the decisions made by their national and regional governments. What has become clear since the origins of the virus at the end of 2019 is that it does not abide by national boundaries, though governments around the globe quickly retreated to national policies in hopes of retarding its spread, alleviating its devastating consequences, and vaccinating citizens. Students in Texas and Lyon will be challenged to reflect upon the personal consequences of the virus’s spread while being provided with a framework for understanding how governments responded and the effect of those responses.
GOV 370V The Politics of Health Care
Health care is currently one of the most hotly debated topics in American politics. The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the issues and controversies that surround healthcare policy and the American healthcare system. The course will facilitate this by first establishing a theoretical and substantive framework regarding various aspects of policymaking and the American healthcare system. Upon the establishment of this framework, the course will then delve into the examination of a number of specific health problems and the controversies surrounding them. Students should leave this class with a working knowledge of the American policy making process, substantial knowledge of the American healthcare system and an understanding of the roots of current debates in American healthcare policy.
GSD 360 GLBLIZATN CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
“Globalization and the Coronavirus Pandemic” presents a fundamental description of the modern globalization process that also incorporates a description of the current Coronavirus pandemic as a phenomenon that is inextricably linked with modern globalization. The globalization process consists of a vast network of man-made systems that produce innumerable kinds of interconnectivity. Some of these systems, such as global airlines and ocean-going ships, carry microorganisms between continents. Other systems, such as international organizations and various forms of governance, can be profoundly affected by the medical calamities that result from the spread of a microorganism like the coronavirus. Global communications technologies function as a megaphone that amplifies the emotional and political effects of the spreading pandemic. Indeed, it has become clear that coronavirus effects have already begun to reverse certain major aspects of the globalization process that have included international cooperation arrangements and the advancement of liberal and democratic values and procedures. The spread of the coronavirus also poses a mortal threat to the mini-global arrangement known as the European Union. In summary, the coronavirus pandemic is a world-changing event that is best understood as a complex infection of the globalization process itself.
H S 331C COVID19 SOCL IMPACT PUBL DILEM
Explore the COVID-19 pandemic through multiple social, cultural, and economic lenses. Consider how globalization has influenced transportation networks and economic relationships that shape infectious disease transmission in the twenty-first century. Examine the effectiveness of different public health efforts to curb the spread of this virus. Discuss how the public health efforts of different nations and international governing bodies reveal different cultural values, political realities, and healthcare systems.
H S 340 Cancerland

*Upper-division; instructor permission required.

This course will allow students to explore the social and cultural terrain of cancer research, treatment, and public policy in the United States. We will begin the course by asking, “what is cancer,” and what shapes our collective understandings of it as a disease in American society? We will read historical accounts of cancer, review epidemiologic and demographic data, and consult biomedical and oncological frameworks to set the stage for our social scientific investigation. We will then consider how social, cultural, environmental, economic, and political forces shape the incidence of cancer, as well as how these social forces shape research, diagnosis, and treatment of various manifestations of this disease. To begin, we will spend several weeks exploring how the social determinants of health influence cancer in society. How do race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexuality shape our collective conversations about cancer, individual and group cancer risk, cancer research agendas, and individual experiences of cancer diagnosis and treatment? We will also consider how the broader forces of environmental deregulation and economic inequality exacerbate cancer risk and prognosis for different individuals and groups. Research continues to show that lifestyle factors and behavioral choices shape the incidence of cancer across socio-demographic groups in the United States. How does stress increase one’s risk for cancer, and what dietary and exercise choices help reduce one’s risk of cancer? We will explore these questions from a sociological perspective, ever mindful of the structural constraints that make healthy choices easier for certain demographic groups. Finally, we will investigate how cultural ideas and social norms shape our understanding of different cancer diagnoses, treatment options, and the experience of cancer. We will examine how the politicization of health care in contemporary society directly relates to cancer. Specifically we will consider how cervical cancer prevention efforts have been politicized in the HPV vaccine debates and how political pressure to defund Planned Parenthood threatens to decrease access to routine cancer screenings for many poor and racial/ethnic minority women.
H S 341 HEALTH AND JUSTICE-WB
Mass disparities exist in the health of humans across the globe. It may seem obvious from a moral point of view that if we can do something to alleviate the global and local disparities in health and access to healthcare, that we should do something about it. Once we scratch the surface of this apparent truism, however, we find a number of assumptions in need of defense. What would ground such an obligation after all? Do humans have a right to health? If so, do they also have a right to healthcare? It may seem that these two concepts are intertwined, but consider an analogy. Someone’s right to life makes it impermissible to kill that person (unless you would be justified in doing so, say in a case of genuine self-defense). Nevertheless, the right to life plausibly does not entail that you are obligated to protect or preserve the life of everyone who has such a right. Similarly, if humans have a right to health, then it would be impermissible to undermine their health. But it is a different question whether individuals are obligated to protect and preserve the health of others by, for example, ensuring their access to healthcare. The course will evaluate different frameworks for characterizing health-related injustices given the challenges to rights-based approaches.
H S 341C COMPARATIVE US HEALTH SYSTEMS
This course will examine health care issues facing the United States though a comparative approach. The course will emphasize how underlying social values shape both the health of a population and its approach to health care. Significant time will also be spent analyzing different models of health care systems worldwide and what the advantages and disadvantages of these models are for different segments of society compared to the US model. We will pay close attention to Scandinavian/Nordic models of health care distribution, along with the systems of other more developed countries, as well as less developed countries, and small country innovations.
HED 370K Foundations of Peer Support and Social Wellness
All students in this course have been selected to participate in the Longhorn SHARE Project, a new mental health and social connection-focused peer support program in the Longhorn Wellness Center. Our goal is to increase all students’ capacity to: a) confidently and effectively provide empathetic, non-clinical peer-to-peer support, and b) co-create inclusive group spaces where self-exploration, growth, and genuine social connection can occur. Students will learn relevant health, behavioral, and social theories, explore common concerns of today’s college students, hone a variety of interpersonal and helping skills, and receive guidance in maintaining ethical boundaries, managing conflict, making appropriate referrals, and responding to peers in distress. Students in this course will also be required to complete Mental Health First Aid training to become certified in MFHA (more details below). In preparation for the Fall 2022 semester, students will give group presentations on common challenges faced by college students with suggestions for peer-based interventions; record and reflect upon a peer support roleplay scenario with a partner to demonstrate active listening skills; and submit a proposal with a partner for a peer support group relevant to their lived experiences and/or interests.
HED 378D Mental Health Promotion
-L
The purpose of this course is to actively engage students in building the skills necessary to be effective mental health promotion peer educators. The course builds on successful campus models of peer education but will be unique in that mental health is the primary subject matter. Students will demonstrate an understanding of public health theory as well as mental health promotion program planning, implementation, and evaluation through a primary prevention lens.
HED 378D Healthy Horns
-L

**Restricted course; see course schedule for more information.

Analysis and synthesis of the literature and discussion of current and specific issues in health.
HIS 322R BIO, BEHAVIOR, AND INJUSTICE
**Get syllabus for 20202; not approved 20199 based on description alone. jmh This course explores important episodes in the history of biology, focusing on questions about whether aspects of human behavior are essentially determined by biological factors rather than by personal experiences and society. Changing beliefs about what is natural have affected how some people are treated, so we will discuss the social consequences of such notions. The course will include the following topics: theories of race, Darwin’s works, theories of criminal behavior, free will, differences between women and men, American eugenics and Nazi racial hygiene, IQ testing, behaviorism, studies of twins separated at birth, studies on the intelligence of animals, genetic engineering, ethical issues of cloning animals and humans, biotechnology, designer babies, and biology in forensic science. This is a lecture course, with participation required.
HIS 322S HIST OF GENETICS EUGENICS
This course will explore the diverse variety of genetic and eugenic practices that began to emerge early in the 20th century and which remain, in contemporary reprogenetic practice, of vital importance today. While the most famous examples of eugenic policy remain those implemented in Nazi Germany and the infamous sterilization laws in the US and elsewhere during the inter-war years, in reality eugenic science influenced research, law, and social policy on every continent throughout the 20th century. Its legacy is often to be seen in today’s genetic research. The course will trace the radical changes in the field of genetics since the early the 20th century and consider the debate over the relationship between eugenics and modern genetics. The course will range across a wide geographical area, looking at eugenic and genetic practice in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well as Europe and North America.
HIS 366N Global History of Disease
This course introduces major themes in the history of medicine through the lens of disease. It focuses on two questions: How have people defined well-being? How have they responded to illness? The course considers major diseases to understand their multiple meanings across time and space including: plague, cholera, influenza, sleeping sickness, PTSD, AIDS and malaria. Themes to be considered include changing theories of disease causality, the development of international public health policy, social understandings of the body, and the growth of the pharmaceutical industry. The course emphasizes the roles governments, medical practitioners, and patients play in the social construction of disease and health. Case studies from India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States will be analyzed through readings, lectures and films.
I 310M INTRO TO HEALTH INFORMATCS
Introduction to Health Informatics (I310M) is designed for undergraduate students who are interested in health informatics – an interdisciplinary professional specialty and scientific discipline that aims to improve all aspects of health through information technology. This course is divided into three parts: (1) health informatics foundations, (2) health information technologies, and (3) using health informatics to improve health. Since health informatics is an interdisciplinary field, we will cover literature ranging from health sciences, information science, computer science, and social sciences. Students will learn core concepts of health informatics through lectures, discussions, quizzes, and a group project. The overall goal of this course is to help students become ethical and competent professionals who can leverage health informatics to enhance health delivery, management, and outcomes.
LAH 351D ETHICAL ISSUES MED & SOCIETY

*Restricted to Plan II majors in the College of Liberal Arts.

This course takes a critical approach in understanding, analyzing, and evaluating health and health care in the 21st century. Students will develop an understanding of 1.) the social factors at play in relation to disease and illness, 2.) the rise of the medical industrial complex, 3.) while learning how issues of power underlie ethical dilemmas in both medicine and society. Students will be introduced to the theory and application of Principalism in order to develop a foundation in ethical reasoning. Through course readings, interactive lectures, special guest lectures, and case analysis, students will be able to recognize and develop a response to ethical issues confronting individuals, communities and clinicians alike.
LEB 334M Healthcare Law and Policy
None
MAN 334M Health Systems Management
None
MAN 337 Leading for Impact
-L
This course will enable you to understand, strengthen, and adapt your personal leadership style. There are two overarching course objectives. First, this course will expose you to topics, concepts, and findings that are central to understanding and practicing effective leadership. Second, this course will focus on your personal growth and leadership development. This will occur through a combination of classroom instruction in leadership concepts and frameworks, self-assessments, action planning, peer discussion, and (most importantly) personal reflection and learning. Through this work, you should gain greater awareness and mastery of your own leadership approaches and skills, better understand contextual demands and how different leadership styles and behaviors best meet those demands, and draw out personal learning based on tangible opportunities to practice the art of leading people. I view this second course objective – personal growth and leadership development – as the most critical because I believe that all leadership development begins with self-awareness and personalized goal setting.
N 321 Ethics of Health Care
-E
This course focuses on ethical issues in health care. Contradictions, inconsistencies, and competing views that lead to dilemmas in health care will be examined. Particular emphasis is given to the resolution of ethical dilemmas through ethical reasoning, ethical obligations in health professional-patient relationships, and just allocation of scarce health care resources. Required for nursing majors. This course has a substantial writing component. Course Objectives: At the conclusion of this course the learner should be able to: 1. Examine the complex socio-political, multi-cultural, economic, and technological factors which have helped create contemporary health care dilemmas. 2. Analyze the underlying premises and rationales of major comparative ethical theories. 3. Explore the resolution of selected ethical dilemmas through the use of models of ethical reasoning and decision making. 4. Analyze the interrelationship between ethics and law and the impact of judicial decisions upon health care practices and policies. 5. Trace the historical evolution of the concept of professional ethics in health care. 6. Analyze the ethical obligations and duties of health professionals which emanate from the nature of the caregiver-patient relationship. 7. Apply principles of ethical reasoning to the process of resolving ethical dilemmas. 8. Select and integrate appropriate research findings in the study of ethical issues related to health care.
N 371 DISABILITY OVER LIFE COURSE
Disability over the Life Course is an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of disability as a distinct social and clinical concept with practical and theoretical implications for health care. This course will focus on the changing needs of persons with disabilities over the life course. Students will learn how to understand the health needs of persons with disabilities and how to work with them and their families so they may negotiate environments with appropriate accommodations that meet their health care needs.
O M 334M Health Operations Management
The main objectives of this course are: • To provide you with an understanding of the crucial importance of operations management in the healthcare environment • To familiarize you with the basic concepts, techniques, methods, and applications of operations management. • To enhance your analytical skills and ability to uncover problems and opportunities for improvement in healthcare as well as other production and service processes. • To prepare you for further study in operations management.
PBH 317 Introduction to Public Health
-L
Overview and basic principles of public health, including the public health system, concepts and tools for measuring health in populations, the relationship between public health and the medical care system, and the role of law and government in public health.
PBH 358D Health Policy & Health Systems
“Health Policy and Health Systems” covers the essentials of health policy and law in the United States and compares the health care financing and delivery system in this country to those of other developed nations. Students will learn the history of health-related legislation in the United States and investigate why this nation, unlike others, developed an employment-based health care financing system based on an insurance model rather than a publicly funded universal health system. The way in which major political forces have determined the structure of the US health care system will be reviewed including an analysis of issues related to cost, quality and access. The evolution of the American health care system will be reviewed from a 20th century framework including discussion on the need for significant health reform in the 21st century. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be discussed from this context. Importantly, students will learn the organization and delivery of health services across the health care spectrum and be able to debate emerging issues including rationing of care, end-of-life issues and other difficult decisions that will have to be resolved. At the completion of this course, the student will have the ability to: 1. Discuss the ways that policy and legal issues impact health care and public health systems. 2. Compare the various sectors of the health service delivery system, including acute care, long term care, outpatient/ambulatory care, mental health services, managed care, and alternative delivery systems. 3. Analyze both business practice and health care delivery in terms of process and outcomes assessment. Understand the current conflicts and challenges faced by the American Healthcare system in terms of cost, access and quality. 4. Discuss the political, social, and economic factors which have produced the current system of delivering health services in the United States. 5. Debate the scope of issues surrounding Health Care reform and the ACA. 6. Understand current reimbursement methodologies and be knowledgeable on trends for payment reform. 7. Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking and communicating. 8. Write effectively using the conventions of the health policy professionals. 9. Respond effectively to the writing of others in the field of health policy.
PHL 325E BIOMEDICAL ETHICS
Apply ethics to problems of medical practice and theory including abortion, euthanasia, sterilization, psychosurgery, genetic engineering, and concepts of health, cure, insanity, and death.
PHL 325J Health and Justice
-E
Mass disparities exist in the health of humans across the globe. It may seem obvious from a moral point of view that if we can do something to alleviate the global and local disparities in health and access to healthcare, that we should do something about it. Once we scratch the surface of this apparent truism, however, we find a number of assumptions in need of defense. What would ground such an obligation after all? Do humans have a right to health? If so, do they also have a right to healthcare? It may seem that these two concepts are intertwined, but consider an analogy. Someone’s right to life makes it impermissible to kill that person (unless you would be justified in doing so, say in a case of genuine self-defense). Nevertheless, the right to life plausibly does not entail that you are obligated to protect or preserve the life of everyone who has such a right. Similarly, if humans have a right to health, then it would be impermissible to undermine their health. But it is a different question whether individuals are obligated to protect and preserve the health of others by, for example, ensuring their access to healthcare. The course will evaluate different frameworks for characterizing health-related injustices given the challenges to rights-based approaches.
PHL 325M Medicine, Ethics, and Society
-E
This course is an introduction to the philosophy of medicine with a focus on social policy and ethical issues. Topics covered include: conceptual and normative foundations of medicine; ethical implications of recent scientific results such as genomics and human embryology; medical explications of race and their implications for health; prospects and problems with human genetic modification and the possibility of eugenics; issues of equity and justice in public health including genetic screening and testing, compulsory vaccination, diseases of poverty, and neglected tropical diseases. Throughout, the emphasis will be on social context and normative analysis. The course will cover the following seven topics in sequence: • Concepts of health and disease. • Genetics, genomics, and medicine. • Ethics and human embryology. • Race and medicine. • Problems of public health. • Vaccination policy and practice. • Gene cloning, editing, and eugenics. The scope of this course is broader than that of traditional courses in biomedical ethics. It includes discussions of topics in medical epistemology (including aspects of the philosophy of biology) and the social and political contexts of medical practice.
R S 373M Biomedicine, Ethics and Culture
-E
This course examines moral dilemmas that have been generated or intensified by recent advances in medical technology. We will explore ethical questions related to topics such as allocation of medical resources, stem cell research and cloning, organ transplantation, abortion, human experimentation, genetic screening, in vitro fertilization, pharmaceutical use and distribution, prolonging life and the right to die, suicide, euthanasia, and diagnosis and treatment of illnesses such as Alzheimer disease, AIDS, and mental disorders. These topics will be considered from a global perspective emphasizing how cultural values inform ethical decision-making and how different ethical/cultural systems address and define moral issues that arise in relation to medical care. We will consider ethical theories that have been used in the West to consider medical practice and compare these with approaches in non-Western cultures such as Japan. The course will emphasize use of case studies to explore issues in medical ethics and to develop the ability to apply ethical theories in ways sensitive to variations in cultural values.
S W 323K Social Welfare Prog, Pol, and Issues
-L
Study of structure and function of service delivery systems, policy analysis, and effects and influences of policy on practice and planning decisions.
S W 360K NARRATIVES OF CARE
This course is offered as an undergraduate level to learn information and skills related to effective communication between patients and healthcare providers as a cornerstone to enhancing patient outcomes. Experiential and applied learning models allow students to work throughout the semester in diverse teams. The course will employ a flipped classroom to allow students to be informed and ready to engage in classroom activities. Prior to class sessions students will have assigned readings and written assignments to complete. The goals of the course are to explore communication between patients and healthcare providers; to give students skills that allow them to best communicate about goals of care, quality of life, and care consistent with patient and family goals and wishes; to give students a greater understanding impact of illness on patients and families; and to explore narrative medicine, and reflective professional practice. Course content will include a student review of provider, patient, and family perspectives on topics and will promote competency in social work and other professional healthcare professional ethics. The importance of cultural and linguistic competency is intentionally woven throughout the curriculum. This course relies on class sessions that promote experiential learning including information gathering, group learning, case review and application, individual reflection, and group problem solving.
S W 360K Social Construction of Disabilities-WB
SOC 307K Fertility and Reproduction
Why do birth rates rise and fall? How can the U.S. have both record rates of childlessness as well as the highest rates of teen childbearing and unwanted pregnancy in the industrialized world? Why does educating women lower birth rates faster than any population control program in the Third World? This course will explore when, why, how, and with whom Americans bear children, and how we compare to other developed and developing countries in the world. Students will analyze the social control of reproduction and the struggle for reproductive justice, the rapid rise of nonmarital childbearing in the U.S. and other countries, infertility and its treatments, the ethics of surrogacy, foreign adoption, the politics of pregnancy and childbearing, risks of maternal mortality in developed and developing countries, race, class and infant mortality in the U.S., and the rapid aging and population decline of rich countries (including Japan, Italy, and Spain) where women have basically gone on “birthstrikes”.
SOC 307P Intro Sociology of Health/Well-Being
Examination of the social causes and context of illness, death, longevity, and health care today in the United States. Subjects include historical perspectives on health and mortality, social class, race/ethnicity, gender, religious involvement, marital status, family, age, and psychosocial factors. Emphasis on the tension between individualistic and public health perspectives on illness.
SOC 308S Intro to Health and Society
-L
The principle objective of H S 301/SOC 308S is to offer students a broad overview of health and society from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. We will examine how social forces influence health and disease in U.S. society, including cultural, economic, and demographic considerations. We will explore why rates of disease vary among different populations and how cultural and structural inequalities shape access to healthcare and affect morbidity and mortality. How do economic factors, politics, public perceptions of morality, and historical biases against specific populations shape our modern-day understandings and experiences of health and illness? We will also examine how social forces shape the very definitions of health, illness, and disease categories, and thereby medical diagnoses and treatments. We will consider the social consequences of the commodification of healthcare and how new technologies are transforming our current healthcare system and the nature of the patient/physician relationship. Our course readings and discussions will help us address current bioethical controversies that continue to influence our beliefs about health and illness and shape our very understandings about human rights and personhood. This course is built around lectures (including guest lectures), class discussion, and film screenings and discussion.
SOC 321K Contemporary Practice of Medic
This course will focus on the experience of physicians in today’s health care system. The format of the course will be lectures and interactive discussions with outside doctors who will share their personal experiences and observations from a wide range of perspectives. We will meet doctors from different specialty areas of medicine. We will discuss a variety of practice settings: private practice offices, large multispecilaty clinics, hospital systems and academic centers. We will focus primarily on doctors actively engaged in the treatment of patients, but we will also meet doctors who work in hospital administration, in medical education, in clinical and basic science research, and in international health care. We will talk with physicians who struggle with larger societal issues of medical ethics and health care economics, but we will discuss these issues from the perspective of physicians on front lines of health care delivery — not as abstractions but as daily lived experience.
SOC 322F Mental Hlth in Social Context
This course is an overview of mental health and illness in social contexts. We will focus on the social antecedents and consequences of mental illness and the extent to which mental disorder is socially constructed. We will combine sociological, psychological, epidemiological, and biological approaches to better understand how the social aspects of mental health and illness interact with individual processes. We’ll also emphasize the diversity of mental health and illness by gender, race/ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, marital and parental statuses, and age. The objective of this course is for you to become familiar with micro-macro processes through which mental health and illness are affected by society and in turn affect social functioning of individuals. At the end of this course you will be able (1) to critically apply a sociological perspective to mental illness as a social phenomenon that transcends the individual level and (2) to understand the social etiology of and social inequality in mental health.
SOC 322J Economic Sociology of Hlth
-E
This course provides a look at the economics of health and health care through a sociological lens. In neoclassical economics, rational behavior and market transactions provide an efficient allocation of goods and services. From a sociological perspective, markets are social institutions that are shaped by the cultural, political, and historical environments in which they operate.   This course will examine how the multidimensional nature and distribution of health and health care are shaped by a variety of social and economic factors. Throughout the course, students will gain an understanding of the power of incentives, markets, and cost-benefit analysis, as well as the limits of these tools, in creating effective health care policy.     The first part of the course will examine how social environment shapes health and health behaviors and how health disparities are viewed from sociological and economic standpoints. The second part of the course will focus on the institutions that regulate access to health care and the historical developments that led to these arrangements.   Topics include:   - Gender, race, and class differences in health - The creation and reproduction of health disparities - Health behavior and externalities - The demand and supply of health care - Moral hazard, adverse selection, and health care insurance - Health insurance and the labor market - Problems of uninsurance - History of health care reform - Comparative health policies.
SOC 336D Race, Class, and Health
This is a course that takes a close and hard look at the health and health care disparities among racial/ethnic minority groups in the United States. The health disparities in the U.S. have been well studied by academics, public health officers, and policy makers for more than three decades. However, the disparities have not narrowed or diminished. The recent Covid-19 pandemic crystalized the impact of structural inequalities in the U.S. on health, disease and death among minority group members. In this class, we will review the complex relationship between social class (socioeconomic status) and health, social class and race, the effect of race/ethnicity on health outcomes and access to healthcare, and specific health issues for major racial/ethnic minority groups in the U.S. Course topics include: conceptual issues central to understanding how low socioeconomic status leads to poor health, understanding how conscious, unconscious, and institutionalized racial bias affects not only health outcomes, but also education, employment, social and physical living conditions, access to medical care. In addition, we will engage in discussions on ways to reduce health disparities and achieve health equity for racial/ethnic minorities. Health and health disparities are analyzed from biosocial and life-course perspectives. Social determinants of health and principles of health equity provide the underlying conceptual frameworks for this class.

Integration Essay

A 3-4 page essay in which you reflect on what you learned and accomplished through your BDP experience.

Important Notes on Fulfilling Your BDP Requirements


For more information on courses, please consult your BDP advisor (bdp@austin.utexas.edu) or the course schedule.