This one-credit course is offered in the spring of each academic year. It is designed to help students assess their suitableness for one or more healthcare professions. Students are required to complete a self-assessment called an Individual Development Plan and to attend presentations by a variety of healthcare professionals, healthcare professional school students, and admissions personnel from healthcare professional schools. The class meets once a week for 50 minutes. The Pre-Health Professions Program Chair is the instructor of record, solicits the speakers, and determines the grading criteria. All students of the JCU community are welcome to attend the course (without credit), even if not enrolled.
This course introduces students to the changing face of medicine in the 21st century by exploring current medical practice and education through readings in popular literature, social science, ethics, and contemporary medical literature. Mastery of complex reading, precise quiz-taking and continuous improvement are foundational skills for success in medicine. The active learner’s honest assessment of their own efforts and those of fellow classmates will prepare them for entry into the U.S. medical system since even in the face of greater government oversight, this system remains based in self-regulation. In-class exercises will be added to reinforce each student’s awareness of her/his own strengths, areas for growth, and their own biases as participants and potential leaders of healthcare in the near future. The overarching goal is to facilitate their career discernment.
Students in this course will focus on understanding how health care professionals can utilize clinical decision-making processes in order to provide just, practical, and best practice decisions, in varied professional health care settings, involving a range of current and emerging moral dilemmas and justice concerns. Reflects the needs of health care professionals in clinical care, research, and management; evaluates the role that justice plays in clinical decision making to assess how clinical decisions may affect the quality of patient care. The course reflects the needs of health care professionals in clinical care, research and management: to recognize real life cases, and situations that raise concerning dilemmas; to understand the dynamics of decision-making processes; to evaluates the role that justice plays in clinical decision making; to assess how clinical decisions may affect the quality of patient care. The course also draws on the practical experience of the teaching faculty, and inputs made by clinical experts, that reflect the medical, regulatory, and management practice of leading medical facilities, concerning both day to day, and cutting-edge medical decision-making situations.