This activity is designed as a capstone project to help students engage with their communities to make a difference on a bioethical topic they care about. We hope it gives you ideas for your own capstone student projects! Let us know if you’d like to share your projects here!
Western societies desperately need to initiate discussions in our communities about the ethical issues that are raised by contemporary medicine. We need creative, motivated, interdisciplinary thinkers to design ways of reaching out to the larger society to get people thinking and talking in their own communities about how new developments in medicine and the health care system are impacting them, their values, and the people they care about…That’s where you come in! You are to design a means of engaging the wider community outside school in reflection and discussion about a pressing medical/health issue of your choosing. If you choose to do so, you may collaborate with a partner throughout this project.
If you are working with a partner, balance the workload as evenly as possible so that your product is a genuine collaboration. The first step is to research what current health care/medical issue that you care about, and that you think other people might/should care about. For example:
- access to the results of genetic testing
- organ transplants and organ donation
- recruitment of volunteers for medical experimentation
- medical ‘futility’ and DNR orders
- concussion, pain killing medications, or something else that needs our attention…
Next, you are to learn more about this topic, and think creatively about how you might want to bring it to people’s attention. Some possibilities:
- short (3-4 mins) interviews with people involved
- animations that illustrate the issue
- a social media campaign, or something no one has thought of yet…!
The final product is your own community outreach effort. Feel free to reach concrete recommendations of your own – what do you think is the most ethical solution here? The project will be evaluated according to its practical promise for broadening and enlivening community discussion about contemporary ethics and medicine. Most importantly, share your project with your school and local community! We at bioethics club would love to hear from you too. Your community needs you – so thanks for being willing to make a difference!