Undergraduate Course: Contemporary Issues in Medical Jurisprudence (LAWS10165)
Course Outline
| School | School of Law |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course is designed to engage students with current issues arising in the field of medical jurisprudence, being a discipline which sits at the intersection of law, medicine and ethics. The earlier seminars focus on skill development (e.g. research and presentation skills) and also include presentations by experts on their own research. These will provide the foundation for later seminars which focus on student-led presentations on a topic of their choice (as selected by their group).
The course is deliberately designed to be open and responsive to issues that are current at the time of delivery in any given year. Accordingly, only broad indications as to topics and subject matter can be provided. The types of issues that have previously been covered include:
(a) start and end of life
(b) reproductive technologies and surrogacy
(c) regulation of medical research
(d) artificial intelligence in healthcare
The core aims of the course are:
- To encourage critical awareness of current issues in a subject/discipline and one or more specialisms.
- To support students in planning and executing a significant project of research, investigation or development
- To foster originality or creativity in the application of knowledge, understanding and/ or practices
- To ensure that students apply critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis to issues which are at the forefront of, or informed by, developments at the forefront of a subject/discipline
- To require students to communicate, using appropriate methods, to a range of audiences with different levels of knowledge/expertise
- To require students to communicate with peers, more senior colleagues and specialists
- To encourage students to take responsibility for own work and/or significant responsibility for the work of others. |
| Course description |
Given the deliberately open and responsive nature of this course, it is not possible to give concrete topics. The topics will be chosen by each group of students under the oversight and direction of the course organiser. Students will then need to work together in groups in order to develop their own presentation (approx. 45 mins) which will be delivered in the final weeks of the course.
An indicative teaching schedule is as follows:
Weeks 1 and 2: Introduction and skills development (focus on seminar preparation and research). Allocation of groups for student-led presentations.
Weeks 3 and 4: Seminars delivered by subject experts on their own research in health law and ethics ¿ these will introduce students to new areas of research as well as allowing for reflections on the skill sets that underpin these presentations
Week 5: Skills development (focus on presentation and blog writing)
Weeks 6 and 7: Seminars delivered by subject experts on their own research in health law and ethics ¿ these will introduce students to new areas of research as well as allowing for reflections on the skill sets that underpin these presentations
Weeks 8 to 10: Student-led group presentations to the class of approximately 45 minutes each
Expectations for each student-led presentation include:
1) Student-prepared reading material to be distributed in advance
2) Clear aims and objectives to be prepared for each seminar
3) Full preparation ahead of every seminar and participation in discussion by all in class
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None, but successful completion of Fundamental Issues in Medical Jurisprudence is highly recommended.
Spaces on this course are allocated as part of the Law Honours Course Allocation process. Places are generally only available to students who must take Law courses. To request a space on this course, please email Law.courseselection@ed.ac.uk
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | This course is only open to visiting students coming through a direct exchange with the School of Law (including Erasmus students on a Law-specific Exchange). Exchange students outside of Law and independent study abroad students are not eligible to enrol in this course, with no exceptions.
**Please note that 3rd year Law courses are high-demand, meaning that they have a very high number of students wishing to enrol in a very limited number of spaces.**
Priority will be given to students studying on exchange within the Law department, and it is highly unlikely that there will be additional spaces for general exchange students & independent study abroad students to enrol; we will look into this on a case-by-case basis in September/January. Visiting students are advised to bear in mind that enrolment in specific courses can never be guaranteed, and you may need to be flexible in finding alternatives in case your preferred courses have no available space.
These enrolments are managed strictly by the Visiting Student Office, in line with the quotas allocated by the department, and all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. It is not appropriate for students to contact the department directly to request additional spaces.
There are no prerequisites, though Fundamental Issues in Medical Jurisprudence (LAWS10166) is highly recommended. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Assessment will consist of:
60% assessment by way of student-led group presentation, to be made up of:
(i) the distribution of a handout in advance, including preparatory reading material;
(ii) the content and structure of the seminar itself;
(iii) clarity of division of labour and responsibility of tasks within the group.
40% by way of two individual blogs, written and submitted by each student. Each blog must be 1000 words |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- 1. Knowledge and Sources of Law:
- To identify both likely areas of law relevant to contemporary issues in medical jurisprudence as well as gaps or instances of inappropriate or over-regulation
- To build on understandings of fundamental areas of medical jurisprudence such as consent, confidentiality, human rights etc
- To consider international dimensions, including the growing importance of European regulation and international agreements
- To explore the limits of law in discerning appropriate social responses to new medical and technical advances.
- 2. Subject-specific Skills:
- To develop and apply critical thinking informed by ethical and social science analysis
- To apply said critical thinking to comment upon and critique of law¿s role and appropriate responses to contemporary issues in medical jurisprudence
- 3. General Transferable Intellectual Skills:
- Independent critical analysis
- Interdisciplinary understandings of common problems
- Problem-solving through reasoned and well-justified ethical and legal discourse
- Synthesis of complex information and ability to subject to informed critique
- To foster imaginative ways of unpacking and responding to contemporary issues in ways that do not necessarily follow or merely apply existing paradigms or legal constructs.
- 4. Key Personal Skills:
- Written and oral skills necessary to deliver the above
- Group working and interaction
- Intellectual development through interdisciplinary engagement
- Autonomous working and independent critical capacity
- 5. Subject-specific Legal and Ethical Values:
- autonomy
- critical self-reflection
- consideration of others
- academic integrity
- healthy scepticism
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Reading List
Mason and McCall-Smith's Law and Medical Ethics, 12th Edition, Oxford University Press
The Law Library has e-journals for leading outlets, including Medical Law Review, Medical Law International, and the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Given the focus on contemporary issues reliance may also be placed on other materials and credible sources that students locate in their research |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Contemp Med |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Gerard Porter
Tel: (0131 6)50 2023
Email: Gerard.Porter@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Robyn Blyth
Tel: (01316) 514550
Email: rblyth@ed.ac.uk |
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