Case Study Paper and Presentation – Choose Your Own Biomedical Ethics Case

Bauer – Bioethics

Length: approx. 1000-1500 words

Case Study – Submission:

1) Please submit your case study paper under Assignments on Blackboard.

2) Also, please post a link to your case, if you found it online, in the discussion forum for this assignment on Blackboard.  If you developed the case, post a brief summary of the case in the discussion forum.

Case Study – Paper: In this assignment, choose a case in biomedical ethics and analyze it by discussing a couple of important ethical concepts (from class) that are relevant to the case. Then, say what you believe would be ethically right in the case, given your analysis.

In this assignment:

1. Choose a biomedical ethics case of interest.

a. A “biomedical ethics case” is a specific situation inhealth care that involves an interesting ethical question.  It can also be a case that is more broadly related to human health.  It does not have to be a case from clinical medicine.

b. Find the case/issue online, in a book, or develop one yourself.  Online news sources are great places to find cases. Just search for a topic of interest.  Find a case with a few details and not too much ethical analysis, related to an issue that interests you.

c. I have listed a couple of good websites on bioethics on Blackboard’s announcement page. Remember, you may create an interesting case of your own, for example, from stories you’ve heard (with identities removed).

d. Choose a case that has not been thoroughly covered in class, or if it has been, use arguments that have not been thoroughly discussed.e. Please don’t summarize the case in the assignment.  A few critical elements of the case are fine. Instead, post the case on the discussion board for the assignment.

2. What are the important ethical issues in the case you have chosen?

a. Structure your assignment to focus on 2 or 3 of the most important or interesting ethical issues within your case.   Go into some detail in explaining how the ethical issues pertain to your case.

b. Use ethical concepts from class. * Please be clear about the connection between the case and the ethical concepts. You may use the 4 box Method or 4 Principles to identify ethical issues in your case.  Please only discuss elements that are relevant to the case.

c. Your case may provide a different way of looking at traditional ethical concepts. Alternatively, do any particular ethical concepts help reveal something interesting about your case?  In your analysis, keep these questions in the back of your mind, and address them if it is helpful.

3. Given the ethical analysis above, what is ethically right in your case?

What should be done? Why?  If you cannot take a side, what makes the ethical issues so hard?