Medicine in Contemporary Society II (MCS 2)
Faculty click here for eportfolio.
Course Goals
MCS 2 gives students an opportunity to expand their knowledge of ethical, social, cultural, and humanistic issues in medicine in a manner reflective of their own career choices and particular interests. MCS 2 focuses on mastery of knowledge and attitudes related especially to the following core competencies: professionalism and ethics, communication, self-awareness, social context of medical care, and health care systems.
Course Title:Altrusim in Medicine
Faculty: Andrew Flesher
andrew.flescher@stonybrook.edu
Syllabus
Description
What is altruism, and what does it have to do with health care? Beyond the principle of non-maleficence, what obligations does the Hippocratic Oath commit the physician? Are there instances in which the “altruistic” course of action ought to be required by health care professionals? Conversely, are there areas in which the “altruistic” course of action can be deemed excessive, or at least not explicitly compatible with health care objectives?
Course Title: Sociology of Medicine
Faculty: Van McCrary
smccrary@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
Syllabus
Description
Sociology is a social science that uses systematic methods of qualitative and quantitative investigation, and critical analysis, to develop a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to improve social welfare. This Selective will explore selected topics in sociology of medicine.
Course Title: The Ethics of Hope
Faculty: Stephen Post & Brooke Ellison
stephen.post@stonybrook.edu
Syllabus
Description
From the early 19th century American Codes of Medical Ethics have emphasized the physician’s responsibility to sustain hope in patients. This is a perennial aspect of the “art of medicine.” Thomas Percival famously described the physician as “minister of hope and comfort to the sick.” Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances. In the words of Aristotle, “hope is a waking dream.” It is a confidence that what is wanted can be realized or that things will turn out for the best. What are the characteristics of hope? What is it and how does it impact health, well-being, and even the will to live? How do patients gain, sustain, or lose hope? How have physicians cultivated hope in their patients, and how have they sometimes manipulated it? What is the relationship between hope and truth telling? How can hope be redirected effectively? What is the biology of hope and of despair? While hope is a perennial feature of medical ethics, “bioethics” has tended to be skeptical of it – and perhaps too much so.
Course Title: 9-11 Anatomy of a Healthcare Disaster
NB: Course meets in Islandia
Faculty: Benjamin Luft
bluft@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
Syllabus
Description
This course demonstrates a multi-disciplinary approach that considers medical, psychological, and legal conditions when treating complex post-disaster cases, like those among World Trade Center disaster responders, and concludes with preparing and conducting an evaluation interview with an actual WTC responder
Course Title: Decision Making in the ICU
NB: This course meets 12:30 to 2:30
Faculty: Feroza Daroowalla
Feroza.Daroowalla@stonybrook.edu
Syllabus
Description
A seminar series for students who want to explore this topic through reading, discussion, class presentation and writing exercises. Topics include the use of critical care resources, setting goals of critical care intervention, predicting long term outcome, and the costs of critical care. Appropriate for students interested in health care policy, critical care medicine (medical, surgical, pediatric, neurologic), geriatrics, end of life care, health care resource management.
Course Title: Core Concepts in Geriatrics
Faculty: Lisa Strano-Paul and staff
lspaul@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
Syllabus
Course Meets from 3 to 5 PM
Description
Americans are aging and the number of people over the age of 65 will double over the next 25 years. Future doctors will require an enhanced understanding of the special needs of this age group. This course will provide students with a broad introduction to the field of geriatrics.
Course Title:Health Care Economics
Faculty: Michael Porembski
Michael.porembski@stonybrook.edu
Syllabus
Description
This course will introduce the student to the complicated world of health care economics, finance and insurance. Greater than 1/6th of our country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is spent on healthcare and there is little, if any, formalized training is offered to physicians to help understand the interconnected and incredibly complex systems.
Course Title:Disability and Community
Faculty:Michael Dorn
Michael.Dorn@stonybrook.edu
Syllabus
Description
Health professionals fulfill an important function for the broader society in judging and assessing the mental and physical characteristics of bodies. In this selective, our focus will be on urban environments and the people – disabled and not-disabled alike – who inhabited them, were shaped by them and occasionally found ways to respond and reshape them in return. Our appreciation for city/body shaping proceeds through two case studies, considering the lives of the poor in Philadelphia during its period as the nation’s capital (1790s), Cincinnati during its reign as “Queen City of the West,” and suburban sprawl of contemporary New York City. Whether in the “walking city” or the “crabgrass frontier,” our focus will be physicians and other health professionals in the public sphere: their notions of the beautiful and the good, as well alternative visions and the communities that support them.
Course Title: Spirituality and Healthcare
Faculty: Michael Vetrano
Michael.Vetrano@stonybrook.edu
Syllabus
Description
Illness is a powerful spiritual experience for patients and their physicians and that both physicians and patients can experience spiritual growth in the partnership of healing. This selective will address some of the most important questions in spirituality and healing:
• How physicians can assess the spiritual resources of their patients.
• What do physicians need to know about theology and spirituality to effectively care for their patients?
• What role does the spirituality of the physician play in the healing of the patient?
• What spiritual skills can physicians use to speak more honestly with patients about death and dying?
Course Title: Hospice as Palliative Care
Faculty: Kathy Van Steen
Liveluvlaf@optonline.net
Syllabus
Description
This selective will present the role of hospice in the terminal care of the dying. As palliative care, hospice offers a method of care that is becoming more mainstream medicine, as it had been in the early days of medicine.
Course Title: Becoming a Better MD Through Poetry
Faculty: Maria Basile
Maria.Basile@stonybrook.edu
Syllabus
Description
By the study of poetry as it relates to the medical experience, we hope to uncover a closer type of critical reading (attention), an ability for a caregiver to understand and convey the needs and context of a patient (representation), and an appreciation of the common concerns of the healing professions and to explore the use of poetry by some physicians to inform their medical practice (affiliation).
Course Title: History of Medicine
Faculty: Carla Keirns
Carla.Keirns@stonybrook.edu
Syllabus
Description
This course will explore how human health and medical practice have changed in the past two centuries in the United States, focusing on the emergence of some of the tools, technologies, and ideas that underlie contemporary medical practice.