Today is the first of our in-class examinations. I will provide any paper you need. You are allowed to bring one hand-written two-sided 4-inch by 6-inch note-card.
Examination I Outline
A. Moral Dilemmas
10 T/F Questions about the case "Hopeless Medical Screening", below.
B. Basic Logic Terminology
5 T/F Questions
5 MC Questions
C. Standards of Evaluation
10 T/F Questions
D. Cultural Ethical Relativism (CER)
5 MC Questions
1 Essay Question (2 pages)
E. Simple Ethical Subjectivism (SES)
5 MC Questions
5 T/F Questions
Each question, except for the essay question worth 10 points, is worth 2 points for a total of 100 points, as per the syllabus. Note that there is also an extra credit essay question worth 10 points. The case for the extra credit essay question is "Keeping Track", below.
Cases to Expect on Examination I
Hopeless Medical Screening
From the 2023 Regional Ethics Bowl
Medical schools in the United States routinely send students to areas where they can gain diverse experiences and do the most good or have the most impact on the population. Communities with limited access to healthcare resources are frequently chosen, and this category includes areas along the US/Mexico border known as colonias. Residents in colonias typically lack access to basic needs that are usually provided by the infrastructure of incorporated communities and so, in many ways, colonias exist “off the grid.” The vast majority of colonias are found in the Texas/Mexico border regions. These communities frequently arose by providing affordable housing for migrant farmworkers, who are indispensable to the region’s agricultural sectors.
Aspiring physicians often use their pre-professional skills to provide medical screenings for health issues commonly found in colonias, such as diabetes, hypertension, and childhood obesity. Interactions with residents of these communities can have positive impacts on the medical students as well as on the colonias residents. Medical students may be introduced to health problems and access issues that they likely did not face in their own educational journeys, but which may be more common within the population they end up serving as physicians. They also gain important skills in interacting with people from diverse backgrounds and performing the repetitive tasks of checking blood pressure, drawing blood, and checking vitals.
If knowledge is power, then informing colonias residents of current and potential threats to their health through screenings should empower them to gain greater health literacy and to change their behaviors. All in all, having medical students travel to colonias to perform screenings for common health threats would seem to be a win-win situation. Such programs can be great publicity for the medical school.
Unfortunately, residents of colonias not only lack access to necessities like potable water, reliable sewage, and safe paved roads, they also lack access to affordable medical care. Telling people who cannot access health care that they have Type 2 diabetes or extremely high blood pressure might only marginalize them further without any follow-up plan or any real way to prevent the heart attacks, amputations, and early deaths that result from untreated hypertension and diabetes. Although working with diverse patients in general is likely a positive learning situation for medical students, it may reinforce stereotypes of noncompliance that some US physicians associate with poverty and race. What does it actually teach medical students when they screen for diseases with no hope of prevention?
Keeping Track
From the 2008 Regional Ethics Bowl
Francine and Jasper Wheelwright spent all summer helping their son, Leonard, get ready for his fall semester as a freshman in college. Leonard was going out of state to an excellent school halfway across the country. They bought him a used but reliable car, reserved a room in the dormitories, went with him to campus for his visitation, and helped him deal with countless details for his new life.
There were only a few remaining matters to take care of. After much research and many talks to sale representatives, they were looking at some of the following products and services. Teen Arrive Alive is a service that would use Nextel wireless phones and a tracking service from uLocate Communications, Inc. to keep them informed of Leonard’s whereabouts at all times. A competitive product, Wherifone, is a locator phone that makes use of the Global Positioning System. To make sure that he was driving safely, they considered buying a CarChip, which would be installed in his car to monitor speed, distance, and driving habits. They were also concerned about his diet, and so were seriously considering Mealpay.com, which may have started out as a way for parents to prepay school lunches, but recently added the benefit of allowing parents to monitor what type of food is being purchased. For off-campus purchases, they were looking into MobileLime, a cell phone that lets kids make credit card purchases from participating fast-food chains and grocery stores, and lets parents track these purchases. Although not then available in the United States, “alerts,” was a service from Langtree SkillsCenter Ltd., in Britain, which promised to send parents regular reports on their kids’ grades, progress reports, and attendance at school. The Wheelwrights added themselves to the mailing list to be informed when this service came to the United States.
At one point, while his parents were taking a break from their research, Leonard walked into the study and saw all the brochures lying around. He looked at them, at first casually, and then with increasing anger and alarm. Snatching up a handful of ads, he confronted his parents.
“What are you doing? I am eighteen years old. You can’t spy on me every minute of my life. I won’t let you. It’s my life, and I don’t want you breathing down my neck 24-7.”
“We’re not spying on you, honey,” Francine assured him, “We just want to be sure you are safe.”