The Health Services Administration Department and the Legal Studies Department at Florida National University have teamed-up! Students are being provided with an in-depth analysis of that controversial intersection between law and health. In Health Law & Ethics, an upper-level course, bachelor students are learning how to protect more than health; they are learning how laws and regulations impact the health service’s industry ability to provide healthcare to the diverse community it serves.The Health Law & Ethics course offered at FNU covers significantly important regulations pertaining to confidentiality, disclosures, waivers, consent, and conflicts of interest. Health care financing and reform are also covered. In addition, students get emotionally charged when ethics and morality are tied into the weekly discussions. For example, when issues like the right to die, reproductive rights, organ transplants, and human research are covered, students become very impassioned. Professors use those situations to promote critical thinking skills by requiring arguments to be premised on fact, not emotion.
As an instructor of this course, I have seen the incredible transformation that students make during the term. Their poignant opinions regarding right versus wrong, quickly evolve into logically-sound arguments regarding ethical versus legal. A health services administrator must be competent in making decisions and policies that pass both ethical and legal scrutiny, which are precisely the focus of FNU’s Health Law & Ethics course.
The Health Services Administration Department and Legal Studies Department at Florida National University are very proud of the teamwork that has gone into producing this highly-regarded course. More importantly, however, we are confidently providing our community with leaders who are skilled in protecting the patients and organizations they serve.
