MEDICINE 452C
Clinical Medical Ethics: What Would a Good Physician Do?
Joshua C. Briscoe
Description from DukeHub
What is medicine for? What standards and norms reasonably guide physicians' actions? This course will consider rival answers to these questions, and then follow clinical ethical cases to grapple with questions about: the clinician-patient relationship, the limits of medicine, the meaning of autonomy, the place of conscience and judgment in the physician's work, the difference between an intended effect and a side effect, proportionality, sexuality and reproduction, the beginning of life, disability, and end-of-life care. Open to MS3 students (with mentor approval) and to MS4 students. The class may be taken individually or as part of longitudinal MS3 medical humanities sequence. Third year students must obtain approval of their research mentor in order to take the course. Email approvals should be sent to (contact listed in DukeHub) and the course director. Meeting Location: Conference Room, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine, Room 108 Seeley G Mudd Building (Medical Center Library). To be held Monday evenings, 5:15pm, -7:15pm. Credit: 1. Enrollment Max.: 16; Enrollment Minimum: 8. Joshua Briscoe, MD; Farr A. Curlin, MD; and Marjorie Miller
Skills
- clinicalSchool of Medicine clinical course
AI-resilient: 3 of 5
- Yes: Physical, lab or field work · clinical rotation
- Yes: Live work with people · "clinical"
- Yes: Judgment someone is accountable for · "ethics"
- No: A craft you practice with your hands or body
- No: Small, in-person format
The checks lean on Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025), which found generative AI applies least to physical work and hands-on work with people. A signal, not a promise. How the score works
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