Medical Ethics, Aging, and End of Life Care in the US

Study of educational, political, ethical, clinical, and personal issues related to working with dying and bereaved people. Focuses on diverse populations in education, ethnicity, culture, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation. Various models for providing care. Visits from Hospice practitioners and doctors, field trips to funeral home and to Duke Hospice where the professor is a social worker. Works to be examined include: Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal," policy articles on end of life care, and on physician assisted suicide/death with dignity, fiction such as Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilich," "Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl". This is a service-learning course. Instructor: Gheith