BME 404                     Ethics for Biomedical Engineers

 

Instructor:         Evan D. Morris, PhD

                        Office 1:  R2 E178

                        Phone:      274 1802

                        Office 2:   SL 220K

                        Email:    emorris@iupui.edu

 

TA:                  Jenna M. Sullivan

                        Email:    js65@iupui.edu

 

Class:               Every other Friday 1-3 pm.

                        Location: student lab, SL-221

                        Schedule changes

 

Office Hours:    By appointment

 

Textbooks        The ethical dimensions of the biological and health sciences

                        Bulger, Heitman, Reiser

                        Cambridge, 2002. 2nd Edtn.

 

                        Ethics of emerging technologies

                        Budinger and Budinger

                        Wiley, 2006

 

Other books:    False Prophets

                        Kohn

                        Blackwell, 1986

 

                        Moral Reasoning in Scientific Research

                        Bebeau et al.

                        Indiana University, 1995


                       Strangers at the Bedside

                       David J Rothman
                       Aldine de Gruyter, 2003
                      

  To be read over Christmas break before the semester:
                        Cantor’s Dilemma

                        Djerassi

                        Penguin, 1991

 

                        Intuition

                        Goodman

                        Dial, 2006

 

          Selected Scientific articles and selections from books to be handed out.

 

Course goals:    To learn to recognize moral and ethical issues in science; to understand the principles behind ethical treatment of animals and humans in research; to learn to analyze ethical issues, to become familiar with instances of grievous moral and ethical lapses in the history of science; to become familiar with the ethical implications of new technologies in science and engineering.

 

Grading:           33% Class participation

                        33% In-class work

                        33% Term project (e.g., book report, analysis of ethical issue…)

 

Book report will be on one of an approved list of books including (buit not limited to):

            “The double helix”,   Watson 

            “The Baltimore case”, Kevles

            “What do you care what other people think”, Feynman (includes independent report on Challenger accident)

            “Strangers at the Bedside”, Rothman

            “Bad Blood. The Tuskegee syphilis experiment”, Jones
             "Mapping Fate" by Alice Wexler
             "Listening to Prozac" by Peter Kramer
              "A Civil Action" by Jonathan Harr

              "My Sister's Keeper", Jodi Picoult

             "Enemy of the People", Henrik Ibsen
              "Censoring Science", Mark Bowen  (stifling free speech of scientists)
               "Unermining Science", Seth Shulman

              "The Plutonium Files", Eileen Welsome (history of human radiation experiments, Atomic bomb project)
              "Arrowsmith", Sinclair Lewis

             

Other Djerassi novels and Plays.


             Guide to Book Report Writing

 

 

Brief outline of Class Session Topics:  (original draft syllabus)

 

  1. Integrity/Ethics in Science
    1. Misconduct, data trimming, plagiarism, selective publishing etc
    2. the scientist in society
    3. “Cantor’s Dilemma” by Carl Djerassi
    4. “Intuition” by Allegra Goodman

 

Homework 1

 

  1. Science and Politics
    1. readings on Lysenko in “False Prophets” by A Kohn, other readings
    2. recent examples of government censorship of science (Hansen at NASA)
    3. “Enemy of the People” by Henrik Ibsen

 

Homework 2

 

  1. Examples of egregious exploitation of human subjects
    1. The Tuskeegee syphillis experiment.  “Bad Blood” by James Jones
    2. Landmark article by Henry Beecher in NJM
    3. Ethics of Human and Animal experimentation

                                                               i.      IRB role, consent, Federal regulations

 

Homework 3


     4.   History behind the need for a Nuremberg Code
            Whether or not to follow  the law - if the law is immoral
            Ethics of human experimentation

             In class movie "Judgement at Nuremberg"


Reading Assignment

"company

      5.  "You are the IRB"
               In class exercise: Devising universal principals to protect human subjects in meical exerpiments

                   IRB decision-making charts
                  
     6. Research on Human Subjects part 2.
    1. The Role of the Institutional Review Board (IRB)
    2. The Nuremberg Code
    3. The Declaration of Helsinki
    4. The Belmont report

                        Reading Assignment
    
      7.  Conflict of Interest
    1. conflict of interest on the job
      1.  how to recognize it
      2. what to do
    2. physician conflict of interest
      1. tension between need to foster innovation and need to regulate possible conflicts
      2. physician participation in clinical trials of a new device
    3. researchers getting paid to give "comapny" talks

                        Homework

      8.  Writing and analyzing Ethics Case Studies

                   Homework