Healthcare Ethics, Gisela Reyes

This course on healthcare ethics came to be as an amalgamation of my experiences both as a graduate teaching assistant at Northwestern University and as an instructor at Loyola University of Chicago. Each iteration of the course, whether as a TA or an instructor, allowed me to reflect and adapt to better meet the needs of my students, especially those preparing for careers in healthcare, public health, or related fields. 

Many of my students are preparing for careers in medicine or other healthcare professions, and I want them to leave my classroom with the understanding that practicing medicine is not merely about mastering math, chemistry, and biology. Medicine is a science directed toward humans and their most profound challenges. To be a physician or a healthcare provider requires more than exam success and lab proficiency; it requires the capacity to listen, to respond with care, and to approach patients with humility and compassion. This is why Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air anchors our early weeks together. Kalanithi’s memoir serves a special role in the course: as a neurosurgeon, he carries an epistemic authority that resonates with students in the pre-health track. By their own measures of success, he is the kind of physician they aspire to become. When he underscores that morality and empathy are central to the everyday practice of medicine, students are often more receptive to his message than when it comes from me as their philosophy instructor. 

Having been granted epistemic credibility with Kalanithi, we jump into a syllabus which is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the physician-patient relationship, where we explore concepts such as paternalism, informed consent, confidentiality, and the challenges of multiculturalism in medical practice. The second section turns our focus to ever evolving issues of biotechnology, including physician-assisted suicide, assisted reproduction, genetic enhancement, and even the role of artificial intelligence in medicine. A throughline remains clear: these broader debates in medical ethics are grounded in the physician/provider-patient. By centering the human encounter at the heart of medicine, students come to appreciate that healthcare ethics is not simply about abstract dilemmas, but about the ongoing responsibilities, negotiations, and trust that structure real-world medical practice. 

Pedagogically, I designed the course with two aims in mind: accountability and community. The daily in-class quizzes serve as both a measure of participation and a writing exercise which signal to students that their voices are seen and valued while increasing accountability to read for class. Although students rarely count the in-class quizzes among their favorite assignments, they often acknowledge in their course evaluations that the quizzes helped them stay accountable for their readings. Beyond essays and case studies, students have the chance to produce a short podcast episode—complete with an introduction jingle—which has become one of the most popular aspects of the course among the students. My own favorite element remains Kalanithi’s text, which many students claim is transformative. Some students have even confessed they enrolled in the course after hearing peers praise the impact of the reading and class discussion.  

Looking ahead, I plan to expand our public health ethics section, given the number of public health majors I teach, and to update material on human challenge trials. For colleagues using this syllabus as a guide, my main advice is to design the course in a way that continually brings students back to the human encounter at the core of medical practice. 

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Gisela Reyes

Gisela Reyes (she/her) is an Instructor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago. Her research focuses on social & political philosophy with a special interest in coalition building. Her current projects focus on expanding political and epistemic inquiry into healthcare.