Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

n/a

Co Requisite Comment

n/a

Aims

This module aims to foster an understanding of medical, legal and ethical issues affecting medical practice the influence of each discipline on the other. It examines the relationship between law, medicine, and bioethics exploring how these disciplines influence each other in the medico-legal context. As such, there are two streams to the course: a legal (including an introduction to bioethics) and a medical stream.

The legal stream accounts for two thirds of the course and comprises of six topics within the broader theme of justice, capacity, consent, regulations and autonomy. These lectures will be delivered by the law team. The topics include introduction to Medical Law and Bioethics; Resource Allocation in the National Health Service and its Implications for Decision-making; Consent and Capacity, Medicine Regulations and BioLaw (Assisted Conception and New Genetics; Abortion and Surrogacy.

The module explores the relationship between law, medicine and ethics in medico-legal decision-making and the regulation of this decision-making process. It examines the body of laws concerning the rights and responsibilities of medical professionals and their patients in a number of specific areas. It highlights the ethical dilemmas which practitioners, the executive and other policy makers, the legislature and the judiciary face and explores the role of law in resolving these issues.


The medical stream makes up one third of the course and will be delivered by Dr Nigel Cooper (Forensic Pathologist). This branch will introduce the necessary basic medical knowledge and goes on to consider forensic medicine, extending to interpretation of injuries and explanation of causes of death in both natural and other circumstances. There will also be a workshop in the medical school during which models and specimens will be used to help explain the two most complex areas of the course; namely the effects of injury and head injuries.

Outline Of Syllabus

Legal stream:

*Introduction to Medical Law and Bioethics
*Allocation of Resources in NHS and Legal Challenges to Rationing of Health Care Resources
*Consent and Capacity
*Medicine Regulations
*BioLaw I: Abortion
*BioLaw II: Assisted Conception and New Genetics
*BioLaw III: Surrogacy

Medical Stream:
*Skin Injuries – in assaults, accidents and self-infliction.
*Injuries to different regions of the body
*The Effects of Injury
*Cars and Firearms
*Heat, Fire and Electricity
*Asphyxia – suffocation, strangulation etc.
*Drugs and Alcohol – as relevant to criminal law
*Suspicious Death – investigation with an emphasis on the limitations of medical science.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

Students will gain knowledge and understanding of the major legal and bioethical concepts, values, policies, principles and rules governing medical practice in general. Students will also develop a basic understanding of the law in other jurisdictions, particularly in relation to the topic of abortion and surrogacy.

Students will also gain knowledge and understanding of the influence of the Human Rights Act 1998 on the law and policies governing medical practice.

Students will develop a basic understanding of medico-legal issues relating to injuries as sustained during assaults, falls, self-infliction, road traffic incidents and by firearms; the effects of injury on different parts of the body, especially the head, and in particular how death may result and the medico-legal issues raised by this; the medico-legal issues raised by deaths and injuries associated with asphyxia, heat, cold, electricity, drugs and alcohol and in sudden and suspicious death cases;

Students will also develop a basic understanding of how law, bioethics, and medicine work together within the medical and legal fields, and evaluate the difficulties which may arise in this context.

Intended Skill Outcomes

• Legal problem-solving - Ability to identify relevant issues from the topic reading and from given facts, apply relevant concepts, principles and rules, identify evidence required to support and substantiate arguments, make judgments and reach conclusions on the basis of sound and informed reasoning.
• Ethical reasoning applied in contentious issues
• Ability to communicate (oral and written) with care and precision in analysing and synthesizing the law and relevant policies.
• Ability to structure argument and analysis.
• Ability to identify issues for research and to retrieve accurate and relevant legal and other sources in primary and secondary form, both in paper and digital formats.

Cognitive skills:

• Analysis - Identifying and ordering issues by relevance and importance.
• Synthesis of materials from a broad range of sources including comparative material from other jurisdictions.
• Critical judgment - Discernment between the merits and limitations/weaknesses of particular arguments.
• Evaluation - Making an informed, supported, and reasoned choice between competing solutions and arguments.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures: The use of lecturing as the primary mode of teaching is justified by the technical nature of the subject and the broad range of material covered within law, policy, ethics, and other literature. Lectures are important in introducing the subject areas, complex moral theories and legal concepts, provide the essential aspects of the topic including an introduction to the academic debate surrounding the topic in order to give students a focus in their reading, provide the points of reference and initiate a critical perspective for further development by each student during independent study. There will be 26 one-hour lectures.

Seminars/workshops: These are student-led activities. There will be 4 seminars in legal stream and 1 workshop in medical stream. These will provide opportunities for interaction, questions and answers, and exam preparation. The seminars and workshop serve to provide learning opportunities for students to develop subject specific and cognitive skills, particularly knowledge synthesis and problem-solving skills.

Structured guided learning: There will be 10 Multiple Choice Quizzes that students need to complete throughout the year. These are also treated as non-weighted formative assessment. The MCQs can be completed in up to 15 minutes. These MCQs will provide students with an opportunity to test their understanding of the content of the course with the provision of immediate formative feedback.

Online revision sessions: A one-hour long revision sessions to revisit the legal stream and prepare students for the assessment.

Online Q&A session: This surgery hour will be used to answer student questions (especially those that were raised on the discussion boards) and give feedback.

Structured Research and Reading Activities: Guided activities will enhance student learning through the use of discussion boards. Students will be provided with questions raised on discussion boards in the past three years. They will work on the answers in their own time both to enhance their learning and for exam preparation. The students should expect to spend half an hour per semester.

Directed research and reading: It takes the form of directed study based on essential and recommended reading for the lecture topics in preparation for seminars (104 hours), as well as independent research to develop depth of knowledge and to enhance critical writing skills in preparing for the assessed coursework and examination (60 hours).

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The formative assessment is provided in the form of 10 MCQs that are structured around the lecture material and small-group classes, allowing students to test their knowledge of the law. These are non-weighted, and the number of correctly answered questions does not count to the final grade, but they are important for skill development. Overall, MCQ are as form of guided learning activity.

Summative assessment is a timed (135 minutes) digital written exam by the end of second semester. Students will be required to answer three questions in total from a choice of six: one from the medical stream from a choice of two, and two from the legal stream from a choice of four. The medium is particularly suitable for assessing problem solving skills and allows students to demonstrate intended learning outcomes across a broad range of topics within the syllabus. Compared to home exams, having timed, invigilated exam will reduce the cheating (especially for medicine questions). Sit-in exam will also enable the teaching team to assess student’s problem-solving skills which inherently requires a time limit.

Digital exam is preferred as it eliminates time and effort deciphering poor handwriting.

General Notes

Original Handbook text: