Mixed Media

The use of new technologies within healthcare is almost always controversial. This is true whether the technology takes the form of assisted reproductive services, critical care provided at the end of a patient's life, or even simply the storage of private patient data on a medical database. New technology often raises profound ethical questions about how we as a society define quality of life, life itself, and the relationship between patients and healthcare providers. Teachers must ensure that students engage in critical thinking about healthcare technology and ethics. One way of doing so is incorporating the use of interactive technology into the lesson plan, in the form of class message boards or Blackboards.

For example, to encourage each student's active participation and ability to use the Internet to find high-quality information, the student (or pair of students, depending on the class size) could be assigned, on a weekly basis, the task of selecting a contemporary ethical issue about healthcare technology, framing it as a case study, and posting it on an interactive class discussion board. The other students could comment upon the issue and debate both sides in a free-wheeling format, until the next class session.

Encouraging students to conduct research on the Internet about a topic of personal interest would enable them to become more comfortable researching professional journals and websites and evaluating the quality of online information. After being exposed to a variety of different issues regarding the impact of healthcare and technology, at the end of the class the students could vote upon an issue discussed online and then discuss that issue in a 'real life' class session, where they would be graded by an observing teacher upon the quality of their responses and preparation. An active learning approach is well-suited to teaching a controversial subject such as medical ethics.