THEO 2994 Topics: Theology and Healthcare CRN 22690
Spring semester, 2013 Monday evenings, 6:00-9:15 pm
Hybrid Course (On-campus sessions meet in Whitby Hall, room 121.)
Instructor: Bill McDonough Associate Professor of Theology
Office: Whitby Hall, room 219a; phone: 690-6072; email: wcmcdonough@stkate.edu
(January 14, 2013—Note: some details are missing here; while details remain to be filled in and specifics may change in response to student concerns, no major work will be added to what is here.)
A. Introductory notes:
Our course is comprised of fifteen learning “modules”: The course consists of fifteen learning modules
(or “packages”), eight face-to-face on-campus modules, and seven online or distance modules. The first module is
F2F on Monday, February 4. Note that there is work due for that opening module. The work for distance modules will normally be completed “asynchronously” (that is, at whatever time the individual learner is able to do it), but most work is due by 9:00 pm on the indicated Monday evening. Most strictly, your first post on the required online discussion questions is due by this time; your required follow-up posts are not due until later. (This will probably be
9:00 pm on Thursday of the “distance week,” but we will decide the exact timing for this together in class.) As a general rule you should plan to spend about two additional hours of study for every one hour spent in class (F2F or distance) for the course. That means you should expect to spend about 10 hours per week on this course.
D2L course home page—and technology check: You will need to access our D2L course home page very, very frequently and you will need to have access to a computer adequate for the tasks of the course. (There is a “student computer check list” posted on the content tab of our D2L course home page. Check there to see that you have what you need; you may also contact me with questions about this.
All students are required to schedule an office visit of forty-five minutes or so to talk with me about their final course project, and all are also very much encouraged to come and visit during my OFFICE
HOURS: Mondays, 3:00-5:00 pm (and 6:00-9:00 pm when we are not in class); Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and
Thursdays 3:00-5:00 pm. We can arrange other times by appointment; call or email me; or just stop by my office to see if I am available. I promise to check my email at least once daily through the course, except perhaps on (some)
Sundays.
B. Course description: This is a BRAND NEW (never before taught) introductory theology course for current and future healthcare professionals. The course addresses fundamental questions of health and healthcare in the light of
Christian theology—questions about: the nature of health and the purposes of healthcare; suffering and human life; compassion as a Christian response to suffering; the healthcare professional and her ethical responsibilities toward the ill, the suffering, and the dying. The course includes application of these fundamental issues to narratives
(“cases”) in contemporary healthcare, with an ultimate focus on one narrative that is particularly meaningful to each individual student. There is no prerequisite for this course.
C. Overall goal for our course : The course intends to set up a conversation between healthcare and spirituality/ theology, in order to provide current and future healthcare professionals with resources for flourishing in their professions. Its main focus is a question: What, if anything, might spirituality/theology have to contribute to the flourishing of healthcare professionals in your professions and your lives? This course is part ethics, part theology, and part spirituality.
D. Objectives of our course…At the end of our course, you will be able to….
SUMMARIZE an understanding of human beings as physical, psychological, social, and spiritual—in a word, as
“spiritual animals”; and name some implications of this understanding of human beings for healthcare.
NAME the limitations of both theology and medical science in the face of illness and suffering, and articulate a
“narrative approach” to healthcare (“narrative medicine”) as a response to those limitations.
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DESCRIBE health care as a profession and articulate your own self-understanding as a healthcare professional.
SUMMARIZE a VIRTUE approach to healthcare ethics, and apply that approach to one “case” in healthcare.
RECOGNIZE the ultimate limits of virtue development in the face of death, and name strategies for living with grief, your own and others’.
E. Course texts—required books:
-DasGupta, Sayantani and Marsha Hunt (eds.), Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies (Kent,
Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2007) Paperback
-Gula, Richard. Moral Discernment Shadows (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997) Paperback
-Lewis, C.S. A Grief Observed (New York: HarperOne, 2001) Paperback
-Shea, John Spirituality and Health Care: Reaching Toward a Holistic Future (Wipf and Stock, 2012) Paperback
-Vogt, Christopher, Patience, Compassion, Hope, and the Christian Art of Dying Well . (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2004) Paperback
Other resources provided electronically—including:
Code Of Ethics For Nurses With Interpretive Statements (American Nurses Association) 2001, 27 pages.
-May, William F., “The Public Obligations of the Professional,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (1992).
-May, William F.
The Patient’s Ordeal
(Introduction and Postscript, 1994).
F. Course approach, expectations for participation, and grading
1. Our course’s approach:
This hybrid course will ask of all of us, including me, the following: flexibility, organization, and willingness to engage each other. My pledge to you is to provide high quality materials (online and in the classroom), to respect you as adult learners & to engage with you in a shared intellectual search, to be organized and prompt in “delivering” the course & its materials, and to be available to you throughout the course to answer both “content” questions about the course and technical questions about how to access and use course materials.
What I ask of you is that you be on-time and prepared for our learning, that you fulfill the course requirements in a timely fashion, and that you engage with each other (and me) respectfully and deeply. Expect to work hard; expect also to experience a relatively informal and conversational “classroom” environment—again, both face-to-face and online. Expect to learn from each other in interactions.
Normally, face-to-face modules will begin with student questions about, and a conversation on, the reading
(texts and/or course handouts) for the day in small and/or large groups. I will then offer some sort of presentation related to the day’s topic. Questions, responses, and comments will always be welcome during my presentations.
Activities, exercises, audio-visual resources, etc. will then be used to make connections between theory (our topic for the day) and practice (real life!). Class sessions will always end with time to look ahead to our work for the upcoming session.
And online modules, again normally, will begin with a brief video introduction from me (made available online within a day or so AFTER the preceding module) and will comprise a number of tasks (reading, reflection, response) to be completed by the student. At the center of each online session will be a required online discussion question. Students will post both an initial detailed response to the question, and at least one follow-up response to her classmates’ responses. A checklist of tasks for all modules—distance and F2F—will appear as the first element on the CONTENT tab for each module on our D2L course homepage.
Participating in online discussion is a central and crucial part of this course appears on our course D2L home page. Each distance learning module has one quite specific question for required online conversation. Faceto-face modules invite a more general online response and discussion.
A last note on our approach: You do not need to be Christian or affiliated with any religion or to be a believer to participate in this course. You need only be willing to engage deeply with the ideas and work of the course.
2. Expectations for participation: Rubrics for participation in both F2F and distance sessions will be handed out in class, and also appear on our course content table on the D2L home page. Do note there that there are very clear
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minimum requirements for posting in response to the “required online discussion question(s)” for each distance session.
3. Grading—Your final course grade will be determined on the basis of a point system – with 200 total points for the course. There are three areas of evaluation: a.
Attendance and active, prepared participation: 75 points (5 points for each module)
Note that the highest possible point total you may receive for an F2F module at which you are not physically present is 2. (You will get those points by posting an accurate and detailed summary of and response to the material for the module.) If you are not present for a second on-campus session you will receive no participation points for it. If you are not present for a third on-campus session you will fail the course. Your participation grade includes your postings in our online discussions. b.
Shorter written assignments (1-2½ pages): 60 total points (12 points assignment—see D2L course
“homepage’).
-Short paper on your “spiritual interests” in healthcare (due February 4)
-Short paper on Shea’s “dimensional understanding” of human persons (due Feb. 18).
-Short paper on “cases, quandaries, and ordeals” (May) in healthcare (due March 4)
-Short paper on Gula’s “three dimensions of conscience” (due March 18)
-Short paper responding to a narrative of student’s choosing from
Stories of Illness…
(April 8) c.
Two longer assignments (6-8 pages): 65 points
-TEST (part take-home, part in-class) on the key elements of virtue ethics (due April 15—30 points)
-Final course synthesizing project in two parts: first, a short Panopto video presentation and, second, online responses to the video presentations of three other students in your group (due on two dates in finals week—May 20 and May 24, respectively—35 points)
TOTAL =200 total points
A = 186-200 points
A- = 178-185 points
B+ = 170-177 points
B = 163-169 points
B- =155-162 points
C+ = 150-154 points
C = 143-149 points
C- = 138-142 points
D+ = 130-137 points
D = 120-129 points
F = fewer than 120 points
4. The first written assignment (worth eight points) is due on Monday, February 4: A “generously graded” written assignment. This work is due in class on the first evening we meet F2F and will lead into our first F2F classroom conversation together. Note that all students will receive one of three grades: full points (if you address each question with any degree of detail at all); half points (if you fail to address one of more question); or no points
(if you do not bring the paper to class on February 4). In other words, this paper will be graded very generously!
Description of assignment: A typed, double-spaced two page paper to introduce yourself to the rest of the class: Pick any two of the “six spiritual interests within health care” (as outlined in Shea’s book, pages 35-66) that are particularly interesting to you. First, summarize Shea’s understanding of each of these two “spiritual interests.”
Second, relate these interests to yourself in some way: how does each interest relate to your personal or professional life? Why are these two elements of interest to you? Last, tell us about yourself and healthcare professions, and name two hopes you have for our course. (That is, what are two topics, “cases,” ideas, challenges, or issues in healthcare you would like to think further about in this course?)
NOTE : A summary explanation of all writing assignments will be given as a handout in class on February 4, and will be posted in the content tab of our course’s D2L homepage. In addition, a fuller explanation of each assignment will be given as we come closer to its due date. The explanation will be given in plenty of time for students to be fully prepared for the assignment.
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5. Other notes: SPECIAL NOTE about written work—our course absolutely prohibits (even inadvertent)
PLAGIARISM: You are responsible that your written work is in compliance with St. Catherine University requirements for avoiding plagiarism. If you plagiarize even once you will fail the assignment in question, and may fail the course. This may happen even in the event of inadvertent plagiarism.
I really want you to know what constitutes plagiarism. Too often students knowingly turn in the work of others as if it were their own: taking even a paragraph of ANYONE else’s work and turning it is as your own constitutes plagiarism. But even more often, students inadvertently plagiarize by failing to cite their sources. The concluding pages of the TRW Reader have a section called “Avoiding Plagiarism.” See especially the section there on “plagiarism caused by improper paraphrasing.” The TRW Reader states:
“In an attempt to avoid plagiarizing, students often paraphrase the passages they want to use. Basically, paraphrasing is stating something in different words. As such, it is a useful device. The problem is that it can lead you to unintentional plagiarism if it is not done properly. Changing a few words in a passage and then using it in your paper without documentation is plagiarism. Changing a few words and then using it in your paper even with proper documentation is also plagiarism. When you paraphrase other people’s ideas, you have two choices: 1.) you may quote the passage exactly, put it in quotation marks and cite it; or 2.) you may change the wording of the passage so that the ideas are explained substantially in your own words and cite it.
Anything in between is plagiarism.” O’Neill Center for Academic Development, “Avoiding
Plagiarism,” in
The Reflective Woman Reader (Centennial Edition, 2004) p. 544.
There is a link to materials about academic integrity on our D2L course homepage.
A note about any particular learning challenges you may face: If you need help with writing, or if there is a particular learning challenges you face, let me know. You will get the assistance you need to succeed in this course if you ask for it.
I work closely both with the O’Neill Center for Academic Development (ext. 6583), in general, and with Patty Wallway (ext. 6882), Disability Specialist there. There is a link to the O’Neill Center on our D2L course homepage.
Concerns about TECHNOLOGY and our course: If you have concerns about using the technology required for our course, please write them in the “COURSE CONCERNS” Discussion FORUM in our D2L
Discussion page.
A final note about concerns around course content, clarity, or meaning: I promise to be available to work with you on any concerns about the course. You are welcome to contact me individually by phone or email; or by stopping into my office. I also encourage you to use the FORUM on “COURSE CONCERNS” in our D2L
Discussion page. That page is set up so that you may post concerns in your own name or anonymously.
G. Tentative schedule of class sessions and assignments: Nothing will be added to what is here. Some work may be shifted or revised to meet particular circumstances arising in our course.
COURSE MODULES : Note that all work for on-campus modules is due by 6 p.m. on the evening of the session and that the main required work (see explanation above) for distance modules is due by 9:00 pm on Monday evenings.
Part one of course: Introductions and preliminary definitions—human persons, health care, spirituality, theology, and healthcare professionals
Module #one: ON-CAMPUS—Monday, February 4; all work is due by start of class today.
Topic: Course introduction: opening up a conversation between healthcare and spirituality
Tasks: See checklist for module #one in content tab of course D2L homepage.
Read: Shea, 1-68.
In-class reading: Stories of Illness and Healing, 230-231. (There is no need to look at this before class, but bring this book to class this evening.)
Writing assignment DUE: On your “spiritual interests” within healthcare. (See full description above.)
Module #two: DISTANCE—major work due on Monday, February 11 (9:00 pm); follow-up work due at same time on Thursday, February 14.
Topic: Human persons, suffering, healthcare, and the possibilities of spirituality
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Tasks: See checklist for module # two in content tab of course D2L homepage.
Read: Shea, 69-168.
Stories of Illness and Healing, “Sometimes Cancer Just Happens,” 247-251
Required online DISCUSSION question : First, summarize Shea’s “dimensional understanding” of human persons (he begins describing this on p. 79): what are the dimensions and what does each mean? Second, describe how Shea sees the dimensions relating to each other. Last, briefly describe one real life situation (please change the names of those involved) you were involved in or observed where at least two of the dimensions of the human person were clearly involved; what is a “lesson” you took from this situation or experience?
Module #three: ON-CAMPUS—Monday, February 18; all work is due by start of class today.
Topic: Against “totalizing narratives” (see Stories of Illness, 6): on the limits of medical science and theology/spirituality.
Tasks: See checklist for module # three in content tab of course D2L homepage.
Read: Stories of Illness and Healing, preface and first three essays, pages xi-15 and 22-29.
Herbert McCabe, “Praying as We Ought,” from
God Matters , 2002 (Digital handouts on D2L content page)
Maureen Dowd, “Why, God?”
New York Times (December 25, 2012—digital handout on D2L content page)
Short written assignment DUE: On Shea’s book (more information on module #3 checklist and summary of written assignments).
Module #four: DISTANCE-----major work due on Monday, February 25 (9:00 pm); follow-up work due at same time on Thursday, February 28.
Topic: Heath care providers as professionals: What does it mean to be a professional?
Tasks: See checklist for module #four in content tab of course D2L homepage.
Read: William May, “The Public Obligations of the Professional” (digital resource on D2L content page).
Stories of Illness and Healing,
“It is August 24” and “Becoming Flora: When the Narrative is Our Own,” 205-214.
Required online DISCUSSION question : First, summarize May’s understanding of a “professional,” and summarize his distinction between a profession and a career. Second, apply this distinction between profession and career to your own experience: what does profession mean to you?; does the term apply to you?—if so, how?; and what are the major challenges to being a healthcare professional today? Tell specific stories—again, changing names when appropriate.
Part two of course Introducing an ethics of healthcare—on becoming virtuous professionals
Module #five: ON-CAMPUS—Monday, March 4; all work is due by start of class today.
Topic: Is ethics quandaries, cases, or ordeals? Virtue at the heart of ethics
Tasks: See checklist for module #five in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: William May, The Patient’s Ordeal (Introduction), pages 1-14 (digital resource on D2L content page).
Christopher Vogt, Patience, Compassion, Hope, and the Christian Art of Dying Well, chapter one, pages 1-9.
Stories of Illness and Healing, “The Listening Room,” 35-38 and “The Particulars,” 216-222
Watch VIDEO clip: “Dax’s Ordeal”—Link to this is on D2L homepage CONTENT tab.
Written work DUE : A short paper comparing May (on cases, quandaries, and ordeals) and Vogt (on principles and virtues): What is the problem both writers are addressing? (See fuller description on writing assignment guidelines handout and on checklist for module five.)
In-class video clip: The Year of Living Dangerously
Module #six: DISTANCE—major work due on Monday, March 11 (9:00 pm); follow-up work due at same time on Thursday, March 14.
Topic: Virtue ethics in healthcare
Tasks: See checklist for module #six in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: Vincent MacNamara, “Is Love All You Need?”—chapter ten of The Call to Be Human (2010—digital resource on D2L content page).
American Nursing Association, Code of Ethics for Nurses—with interpretative statements (2001—digital resource on D2L content page).
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Stories of Illness and Healing, “White Coat Syndrome,” 90-96
Required online DISCUSSION question: In the reading for today, MacNamara writes: “A virtue approach seems to me to be a necessary component of an adequate moral life…[But] perhaps we need to supplement it with more precise guidance. Perhaps we need prohibitions—frontiers—as well as encouragement in the path of virtue”
(MacNamara, 176). First, explain what MacNamara means. Second, find and list (with page references) at least two examples of virtues in the ANA Code of Ethics, and at least two examples of prohibitions found there. Third, do MacNamara and the ANA seem to be “on the same page”? Explain.
Module #seven: ON-CAMPUS—Monday, March 18; all work is due by start of class today.
Topic: Conscience as a three-part reality and practical reasoning: Virtue ethics’ vision of the human good
Tasks: See checklist for module #seven in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: Richard Gula, Moral Discernment, chapters one and two, pages 1-53.
Stories of Illness and Healing, “Section introduction,” 109-110 and “The Placenta, the Pancake: Metaphor in
Medicine,” 111-116
Writing assignment DUE: Short paper on conscience explaining Gula’s “three dimensions” of conscience (see
Gula, page 18 and following). First, explain each dimension. Second, give your own example parallel to the one
Gula gives on p. 20, where he uses a story about St. Thomas More to argue that “any choice that involves an act of conscience includes one’s whole self with it.” What is your example and how does it relate to these dimensions of conscience?
Midterm and Easter BREAK—No classes: March 25-April 1
Module #eight: DISTANCE--major work due on TUESDAY, April 2 ( note day change due to Easter— 9:00 pm); follow-up work due at same time on Thursday, April 4
Topic: “The wound of being human”: “sin” as also a three-part reality.
Tasks: See checklist for module #eight in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: Vincent MacNamara, “The Human Condition”—chapter three of The Call to Be Human (2010—digital resource on D2L content page).
Stories of Illness and Healing, “Happiness in Quotation Marks,” 261-266 and “Surviving, but not quite thriving,”
289-293
Required online DISCUSSION question: The video lecture presentation for this session presents an understanding of sin as comprised of three elements: fact, act, and orientation. First, summarize that three-part understanding in your own words. Second, find at least two examples of each element in the reading from
MacNamara reading for today. Write the text out with its page number. (This means six total texts.) Last, apply this three-part understanding of sin to something in “real life,” preferably to something from your work in healthcare.
Where is a very specific situation in which you have seen sin as fact, act, and orientation together?
Module #nine: ON-CAMPUS—Monday, April 8; all work is due by start of class today.
Topic: Moral truth—not relative but always needing to be discovered through growth in virtue
Tasks: See checklist for module #nine in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: Gula, Moral Discernment, chapters three, four, and five, pages 57-101.
Stories of Illness and Healing, “Narrative House Calls and Cultural Memory,” 300-314
In-class video clip: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
Writing assignment DUE: Which short narrative that we have read so far in our Stories of Illness and Healing text really “speaks” to you as a story of moral truth discovered through growth in virtue? (More detail will appear on
D2L checklist.)
Module #ten: ON-CAMPUS—Monday, April 15; all work is due by start of class today.
Topic: The role of the moral guide
Tasks: See checklist for module #ten in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: Gula, Moral Discernment, chapter six, pages 105-131.
William May, The Patient’s Ordeal (Postscript—digital resource on D2L content page).
Stories of Illness and Healing, student’s choice—more information forthcoming
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TEST (part take-home and part in-class) on the key elements of virtue ethics: vision of human goodness, conscience, sin, and virtue (more information forthcoming)
Part three of course: Healthcare professionals as moral guides (not experts!):
Accompanying persons at the end of their lives
Module #11: DISTANCE--major work due on Monday, April 22 (9:00 pm); follow-up work due at same time on Thursday, April 25.
Topic: Controversy about what the virtue of compassion asks of healthcare professionals today
Tasks: See checklist for module #eleven in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: Vogt, chapter three (53-85)
Stories of Illness and Healing, “Teaching about care at the end of life,” 294-299
Required online DISCUSSION question: In chapter three, Vogt presents two different approaches to
“compassion,” one from the writings of Dr. Timothy Quill, and the other a “Christian” one. Outline both approaches—what does compassion mean for both of these people? What are the elements of compassion? How are their views alike and how are they different? Is Vogt’s view of compassion convincing to you? Explain.
Module #12: ON-CAMPUS—Monday, April 29; all work is due by start of class today.
Topic: Traditional sources of wisdom for moral guidance at the end of life—Christian scripture and tradition.
Tasks: See checklist for module # twelve in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: Vogt, chapter two (15-42), four (pages 97-121)
Handout on terms relevant to ethics at the end of life.
Stories of Illness and Healing, “Leave of Absence,” 232-235
No written assignment is due today.
Module #13: DISTANCE--major work due on Monday, May 6 (9:00 pm); follow-up work due at same time on Thursday, May 9.
Topic: Tradition in the hands of virtuous professionals: end of life care today.
Tasks: See checklist for module # thirteen in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: Vogt, chapter five, 129-140.
Begin to read CS Lewis, pages xi-16.
Stories of Illness and Healing, “Remembering Dan: Excerpts from my journal,” 168-171
Required online DISCUSSION question: Near the beginning of chapter five, Vogt writes: “In this conclusion, I will offer two main points that highlight what the reflection on patience, compassion, hope and dying well of the last three chapters might offer toward the process of constructing an ars moriendi for our time. I began this book with the assertion that insufficient attention has been paid to the experiences ordinary people have of dying. Recent scholarship in bioethics and even theological ethics has offered little advice regarding how people might meet the existential challenges presented in dying. In answer to my own criticism I want to end on a very practical note by suggesting two steps that can be taken to make dying—even tragic and difficult—into something that can be endured. [First] first living well is key to dying well (130) … and, [second, we need to] integrate dying within the life of the Christian community (136).”
Your question to write on : Frist, cite one text from this chapter that helps you understand what Vogt means each of these two “very practical steps.” Then, explain what Vogt means by each text. Last, is Vogt right in saying we will benefit if we reinstate our own contemporary form of ars moriendi ? Why or why not?
Course conclusion: Moral guides in our own lives
Module #14: ON-CAMPUS—Monday, May 13; all work is due by start of class today.
Topic: Returning to our basic human identity as spiritual animals: a conversation together about virtue in the face of our own mortality and grief
Tasks: The only task is to read CS Lewis’s book. We will apply the course
Read: CS Lewis, A Grief Observed , finish the book
In-class film segment: Shadowlands
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Stories of Illness and Healing, “Doppelgänger,” 215
Module #15: DISTANCE—FINAL EXAMS WEEK major work due on Monday, May 20 (9:00 pm); followup work due at same time on Friday, May 24.
Topic: Virtues to sustain the lives and practices of healthcare professionals— syntheses and applications of our course content
Tasks: See checklist for module #fifteen in content tab of course D2L homepage
Read: Only what you need for your final project.
DUE : Panopto video clip and response to those of two or three other students?
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