Philosophy of Medicine

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

An introduction to common topics encountered in philosophical reflection on medicine. The goal of this introduction is to enable students to personally reflect on problems they will encounter as practitioners of a health profession today: What is the nature and task of specialized medical care delivered in densely instrumentalized hospital settings? What is the role of clinical judgment, and can it be replaced by technology? Where does science feed into this, if there is even a difference between medicine and science? And why is everybody in health care exhausted and overworked? So as to facilitate a richer discussion of these questions, students will also learn about the historical development of medicine as we have come to know it today.