In this unit of study students gain the background in ethical philosophy necessary to engage in advanced analyses of issues in bioethics. Introduction to Ethical Reasoning familiarises students with classical theoretical frameworks such as virtue ethics, Kantian deontology, and utilitarianism that have been influential in the history of Western philosophy. The unit also examines more contemporary approaches to ethics, such as the capabilities approach, feminist ethics, human rights doctrines, and poststructuralist approaches. Across these different theoretical frameworks, discussions will focus on topics such as cultural relativism, universalism in ethics, difference and power.
All assessments must be completed to pass this Unit.

This unit of study offers a critical review of the field and methods of bioethics. The course explores the meaning of 'bioethics' as a concept and practice, both historically and in contemporary discussions. The seminars explore a diverse range of different perspectives and methods that people have used in bioethics from a critical perspective. Topics include the exploration of 'bioethics' as a topic and concept, the focus on the ethical dimensions of advances in biomedical science and biotechnology, using different theoretical positions such as risk and precaution, virtue, narrative, political philosophy, cross-cultural bioethics, especially indigenous thinking, feminist bioethics, bioethics and non-human animals, public health and, climate change and ecological and environmental bioethics. Learning activities will include seminars and small group discussion.

How does biomedicine both influence and reflect the broader society of which it is a part? This unit of study addresses this general question by examining a set of issues relating to sex and drugs. A key theme in the course is the "medicalisation" of human experience in the domains of gender, reproduction and sexual behaviour. The course aims to widen the scope of bioethical inquiry through readings that explore the issues from a range of different perspectives including history, sociology, politics, health policy, philosophy, religion, feminism, public health, and personal experience. Each topic introduces specific concepts which students are encouraged to apply. Students are also encouraged to draw on their own disciplinary and/or professional background.Online discussions and coursework will provide opportunities to learn from other students, and apply learning from other units of study in bioethics.
All assessments must be completed to pass this Unit.

This unit of study introduces some philosophical questions and debates concerning medicine and the biomedical sciences. It is divided into three sections. The first explores basic concepts and distinctions such as health, disease, mental illness and disability. The second section deals with topics that lie at the heart of a scientific approach to medicine, namely, causation, experimentation, evidence and clinical reasoning. The final section of the course invites students to reflect critically on the preceding section by exploring the rationality claims of non-orthodox approaches, by inquiring closely into the meaning of medical terms, and by taking a broad view of the notion of risk. All assessments must be completed to pass this Unit.

BETH5104 Bioethics, Law and Society introduces students to some of the interrelationships between health care, ethics, and the law. Students will explore the moral basis of law and the means by which law in turn, influences and directs clinical practice and health policy. We also look at the limits of law in solving ethical dilemmas, and consider what happens when the law falls out of step with the moral institutions of health care providers, patients, and the general public. Over the course of the semester, students will learn to critically read and analyse primary sources of law relevant to bioethics. Students will then examine a number of areas of law that have particular significance for bioethics and society including the law of consent, medical negligence, advance directives, maternal-foetal conflicts, abortion, reproduction, end-of-life decision-making, tissue regulation and infectious disease. Learning activities in BETH5104 include lectures, case discussions (during lectures), problem-based learning, online learning activities and written assessments.

This unit of study introduces students to the ethical, social and legal issues that underlie a wide range of biotechnologies, including: genetics, genomics, human reproduction, stem cell research, nanotechnology and emerging biotechnologies. Key concepts influencing debates in this area are covered, such as 'procreative beneficence', personhood, risk, consent, public engagement, and property in the body (including gene patenting). Topical case studies are included to keep up with recent developments in the field. Students will explore the ethical limits to research and knowledge in biotechnology.

This unit of study critically examines research ethics in its wider context, from how research is structured to its dissemination. It explores the ethical underpinnings of a variety of research methods and their uses in humans and non-human animals including the justifications for engaging in research, key concepts in research ethics and research integrity. The unit also briefly examines the history of research and the impact of research abuse on participants, both human and non-human animal.

This unit provides students with an overview of the ethical and political issues that underlie public health and public health research. The unit begins with some fundamentals: the nature of ethics, of public health (and how it might be different to clinical medicine) and of public health ethics. It introduces key concepts in public health ethics including liberty, utility, justice, solidarity and reciprocity, and introduces students to different ways of reasoning about the ethics of public health. A range of practical public health problems and issues will be considered, including ethical dimensions of communicable and non-communicable diseases in populations, and the ethical challenges of public health research. Throughout, the emphasis is on learning to make sound arguments about the ethical aspects of public health policy, practice and research. Most learning occurs in the context of five teaching intensives, which are highly interactive and focus on the development and application of reasoning skills.

This unit will facilitate students to critically review the ethical issues that underlie the delivery of healthcare. Students will explore: dominant theoretical approaches to ethical reasoning in the clinical context; key ethical concepts in the clinical encounter (such as consent, professionalism and confidentiality); major contexts in which ethical issues arise in clinical practice; and the role of clinical ethics consultation. The unit will also consider specific issues and populations within clinical practice, such as ethical aspects of healthcare at the beginning and end of life.

Constructs of mental health and mental illness are highly contextual to culture, history and societal notions of normative experience and conduct. Mental illness can place an individual in a position of particular disadvantage and unique vulnerability through diminished (and deprived) autonomy. In light of this, ethical deliberation in the field of mental health care differs from other lines of inquiry in biomedical ethics. This unit of study begins with an examination of the unique status of the 'psychiatric patient' and the problems in applying normative ethical approaches to moral deliberation in mental health care. We then explore particular topics in mental health ethics including the legacies of the National Socialist persecution of the sick and disabled; and unique challenges in the care of groups in the community including Aboriginal Australians, refugees and asylum seekers, people in LGBTIQ communities, and adults and children living with learning and intellectual disabilities. We also explore contemporary controversies in mental health care including coercion and involuntary treatment, the mental health implications of the euthanasia debate, gendered power, medicalisation of children's behaviour, the problem of 'evil', and mental health professionals speaking out in the media on topics of public interest. During the semester, the course coordinators provide participants with regular feedback and guidance in their engagement with the topic. Each week features a podcast lecture and/or interview with an expert in the area under consideration and recommended readings, as well as other media where relevant.

BETH5206 Ethics and Public Health introduces you to a range of ethical issues that arise within the practice of public health. It begins with an orientation to the field: we will discuss conceptualisations of public health, what ethics is, and how ethics relates to evidence. We will talk about the origins and development of public health ethics as a (relatively new) field, and how it is distinguished from other areas of ethics. Your learning will then be structured around three sets of important concepts. The first are concepts central to utilitarian reasoning: benefit, harm and cost. The second cluster of concepts relates to the proper relationship between the citizen and the state (including public health as an institution): they are freedom, liberty and paternalism. The third cluster includes fairness, justice and equity, concepts that are often used rhetorically in public health, but not always carried through into practice. We will focus on two main case studies to apply what you learn. Throughout this unit you will be encouraged to ask questions, and to compare and debate competing answers to those questions. What is public health? What does it mean to say that something is harmful? To what extent should we each be free to engage in practices that harm our health? What is the proper role of the state in attempting to change the health of populations? What is equity and why does it matter (and if it matters, why aren't we doing more about it)? This is a Core Unit for Graduate Diploma and Master in Public Health students. Most learning occurs in the context of two teaching intensives, which are highly interactive and focus on the development and application of reasoning skills.

Creative practices are transforming health and healthcare. The arts and health sector is rapidly expanding globally, generating lasting impacts at the nexus between wellbeing, community, and individual physical health. Creative practices are shifting aging and residential care, mental health, and disability, from exclusion and stigmatisation, towards empowerment, agency, and connection. This unit gives students practical examples of how to incorporate the creative arts into public health and health care. You will be oriented to theories, justifications, and research evidence for varying uses of creative arts in health, and will be given access to a range of practical approaches, models and experiences. Areas covered include: the status and uses of art and music as therapy; narrative health; hospital art, design and architecture; creative practice in community health, and the role of art in public health, health research, and social marketing campaigns. Students will have unique access to guest lecturers who are world leaders in the fields of arts based research and knowledge translation; community transformation; art for social change; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health; and arts and ethics in health. This course will appeal to students of public health; health communication; health policy; literary, visual and performing arts; social work; psychology; and related disciplines, who want to understand more about the indivisibility of culture, community, country and health.

This unit of study introduces students to human research ethics in its wider context. It explores the ethical underpinnings of the research endeavour including the justifications for engaging in research and research integrity. The unit also briefly reviews the history of research and the impact of research abuse on human participants.

Medicines save lives but they can be costly and can have serious adverse effects. Value-laden decisions are continuously being made at individual, institutional, national and international levels regarding the medicines we need, want and can afford. In this unit of study, we will explore and critique global and national policies and processes related to medicines, examining how research and development agendas are set; how medicines are assessed and evaluated; and how new technologies are translated into practice. We will also explore broader trends such as globalisation, commercialisation and changing consumer expectations. By the end of the course, students will understand the forces shaping the development, regulation, funding and uptake of medicines both nationally and internationally, and the political, ethical, legal and economic issues that are at stake. This course is designed to appeal to a wide range of students from ethics, law, public health, health care, policy, communications, economics, business, politics, administration, and biomedical science.

This unit of study synthesizes and critically scruitinizes our models and concepts of brain and mind through a neuroethics lens. Neuroethics is sub-field of bioethics that is concerned with the ethical, legal and social impact of the neurosciences. Beginning with a module on the historical development of modern neuroscience, students will learn about the beliefs, experiements and discoveries that have led us to recognise how the brain contributes to the human experience in unique ways. Throughout this unit, students will examine how advances in neuroscience have shaped how we conduct research, treat clinical conditions, make individual and collective decisions, and live together as a society. During the class discussions and assessments, students will grapple with the issues that arise when we intervene in the brain and how those interventions modify our concepts of health, illness, identity and morality. The scope of these issues is enormous and speaks to the importance of students developing a clear framework to contextualize developments in neuroscience within the scientific, ethical, cultural, social and legal environments in which they arise.

This unit will provide an opportunity for approved candidates to pursue a self directed project equivalent in size and scope to a 6cp unit of study, under supervision. Students will be expected to discuss and plan the project with their supervisor, then submit drafted material to an agreed timetable, and to discuss this drafted material with their supervisor before submitting a final essay. All assessments must be completed to pass this unit. Supervisor contact will be the equivalent of 1/2 hr per week for the semester.

From Black Death, syphilis, fevers, and venereal disease to Truvada whores and complex dynamic systems, this unit of study requires students to systematically explore the major critical perspectives on public health by examining its history. Most public health policy and practice is in fact determined by the traditions, ideas, values and practices that developed in the past. Students will gain an understanding of how how different forms of evidence have been constructed for different public health policies, and able to identify the social and cultural correlates of shifts in medical and health concepts over time. They will also learn to situate developments in public health in relation to macro political and economic determinants, as they explore how public health and colonial and State power co-developed and how these alliances and power structures continue to be reflected today in the Emerging Infectious Diseases worldview. Students will be able to offer explanations both of what drives change and paradigm shifts in public health policy and practice and of the effects of underlying long term continuities in approaches to public health. Students will be required to use their knowledge to develop self-reflexive critical assessments of the ethical commitments they want to guide their own practice and that of contemporary public health policy.

In this unit, students learn how to communicate effectively with respect to health risks, both to individuals with health concerns, and with respect to risks to the public. The first half covers individual health risk communication in clinical settings, including: theories of health communication, patient centred care and shared decision making; evidence-based communication skills; research paradigms including interaction analysis; cross-cultural communication in health care; discussing prognosis; and informed consent. The second half explores risk communication for public health, including: how to effectively manage outbreak or other crisis situations; how to communicate about issues where the risk is low but ublic concern is high (such as with respect to the fluoridation of water); and how to best manage controversies. We teach theories of risk perception and communication with particular application to public health incident responses. We give practical guides to media messages, risk message framing, public engagement, traditional and social media, and the ethical aspects of public communication. The unit offers students the opportunity to learn from outstanding guest lecturers who work in these areas and interactive opportunities for students to try their skills in risk communication and decision making.

This unit must be taken in conjunction with BETH5302 (Research Project B). Students must receive formal permission from the Program Director to enrol in BETH 5301 and BETH 5302. . The Research Project (i.e. parts A and B combined) provides opportunity for research and in-depth learning in a bioethics topic of special interest or importance to the student. Successful completion of the project may also provide students with the research experience required for the pursuit of a higher degree. This unit involves independent research and regular meetings with a supervisor. In the process of completing the Research Project (i.e. parts A and B combined), students will produce an original 15,000 word treatise. Choice of topic depends on the availability of an appropriate supervisor. It is recommended, but not required, that BETH5301 and BETH5302 are taken in consecutive separate semesters, rather than concurrently. A mark for both BETH5301 and BETH5302 combined is provided at the completion of BETH5302. It is possible to take these units in distance mode.

This unit must be taken in conjunction with BETH5301 (Research Project A). Students must receive formal permission from the Program Director to enrol in BETH 5301 and BETH 5302. The Research Project (i.e. parts A and B combined) provides opportunity for research and in-depth learning in a bioethics topic of special interest or importance to the student. Successful completion of the project may also provide students with the research experience required for the pursuit of a higher degree. This unit involves independent research and regular meetings with a supervisor. In the process of completing the Research Project (i.e. parts A and B combined), students will produce an original 15,000 word treatise. Choice of topic depends on the availability of an appropriate supervisor. It is recommended, but not required, that BETH5301 and BETH5302 are taken in consecutive semesters, rather than concurrently. A mark for both BETH5301 and BETH5302 combined is provided at the completion of BETH5302. It is possible to take these units in distance mode.