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COVER STORY
Ethics
Page 1
Every day, doctors must make decisions that will
lead to the lifeor death of their patients. That's why it
takes so long to learn to be a doctor. But can the
ethical background for those decisions be taught? If
so, how do universities fare at that education? Cover
photo by University Health Sciences Relations.
MUSIC
Concerts
Page 4
From the melodious harmony of the Roches to the
legendary Sippie Wallace with stops at David Eyges
and ABC, we ve got the right concert for you.
CLASSICS
Chorus
Page 6
The righteous strains of Handel's "Hallelujah
Chorus" ring out as perennial Christmas favorite The
Messiah is performed.
THE LIST
Happenings
Page 7-10
Your guide to fun times for the coming week in Ann
Arbor. Film capsules, music previews, theater notes,
and bar dates, all listed in a handy-dandy, day-by-day
schedule. Plus a roster of local restaurants.
RESTAURANTS
Sippie Wallace: Celebration
Chez Crepe
Page 11
nISCoS
They're not just for breakfast anymore. Slap it on a
plate with maple syrup and they're called pancakes.
But if you fold them around meat, fish, or vegetables,
they're crepes. The magic wonders of this French
import are discovered at Chez Crepe.
BANDS
Girl Talk
Albums
Page 12
Joni Mitchell, Phil Collins, and Prince. As in-
dividual a bunch of songsters as you'd ever want to
meet. And they all have new albums out.
Let's Talk About Girl:
a band, gets profiled.
Making the rounds: A doctor's dilemma
as resource material.
Topics in
Ethics
from 1
The University of Michigan's Medical
school offers only one ethics course, an
elective, to its students each term. Its
Inteflex program, a seven-year com-
bined undergraduate and medical
school curriculum, requires that
students complete a general
humanities program, and that they
take an ethics course-they have one to
choose from-during their third year.
Soon, they will also have to participate
in ethics discussion groups during their
sixth year.
Some medical school administrators,
including Dr. James Taren, associate
dean of administration, think this ap-
proach is more than sufficient. They
would like to have a program on ethics,
they say, but they don't think its worth
the sacrifices that would "have to be
made in other areas. Besides, they just
don't have the money, they say.
Although the school does not have a
medical ethics requirement, according
to Taren, its graduates are as well-
prepared to deal with the moral
problems doctors face as the graduates
of any other medical school. The
University is "probably consistent with
our peer institutions," he says.
"The curriculum committee has
debated adding a course in the first two
years. But the first two years of
medical school are so rigorous that the
benefits of adding a regular course
would be more negative than positive,"
he says. "The course would have to
compete with other courses.".
Not everyone agrees. Prof. Martin
Pernick, who teaches medical history,
says that although "a Doctor Franken-
stein will not be converted by an ethics
course," the University needs to do
more. "As far as mandatory course
work goes, yes, there should be a selec-
tive distributive requirement (in
ethics)," he says. When he came to the
University four years ago, Pernick
says, the medical school was talking
about establishing a "large human-
values unit. The concern has been
demonstrated," he says. "The in-
stitution is failing."
Pernick came to Ann Arbor from the
faculty of Penn. State University's
medical school humanities program.
"Religious Foundations of Health
Care" include the nature of health and
healing, the relationship of religion,
science, and technology, and the in-
fluence of religion on the ethics and
politics of health care.
A course in the history and
philosophy of genetics gives students a
chance to examine how genetics should
be used to determine the future of
society. Students discuss the various
applications of genetics research-such
as in , vitro fertilization and
cloning-from ethical, social, and
scientific points of view.
According to Pernick, Penn State's'
'A Doctor Frankenstein will not be conver-
ted by an ethics course.'
-Prof. Martin Pernick
dergraduate years. "Medical school is
not the place to teach ethics and
philosophy," he says. "(It should) in-
troduce students to problems that exist
in the medical arena." The brown bag
setting is good, according to Abrams,
because it "brings out strong ideas and
emotions. Elective courses are great
because there is only a minimum of
consciousness-raising needed."
The already crowded curriculum is
an insurmountable stumbling block to
added . required courses, he says. In
making room for the new requiremen-
ts, "what courses do we sacrifice?" he
asks.
Traditionally, doctors have been the
ones to decide which patients will be the
happy recipients of scarce organs.
Jamie Fiske's case brings up many
pressing questions about that
role-what if there had been another
child at the hospital who needed that
liver just as much? Should Jamie have
gotten it because her parents had better
public relations skills than the parents
of the other child?
It all comes down to a question of
medical ethics, that amorphous area of
debate that is part of every doctor's
everyday routine, that is sometimes
dragged through malpractice courts,
and that is finally finding its way into
medical schools-some medical
schools, anyway.
The current interest surrounding
assignments of organs to patients is
only the tip of the iceberg. More and
more, doctors are feeling public
pressure in areas that aren't strictly
medical. For instance, they are asked
about their roles in civil defense plan-
ning. Are they obligated, as doctors, to
actively participate in civil defense
planning? Or should they avoid such
planning, because it implies that a
nuclear war is survivable?
Or teenage birth control. Should doc-
tors notify parents when their children
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bargaining committee, you either want group including faculty, students, and members
to see 1000 GSA's making up picket staff. Why single out GEO because it, on. The
signs or else get them to sign on the dot- fails to get language into its contract? new lead
ted line whatever the U has to offer. What about the faculty, student gover- begin to1
Second the anticontract opposition. nment, other staff unions? functioni
There were 184 GSA's who voted again- Events show that GEO was pushed would n
st the contract, a riskier but more prin- too fast into bargaining before having unaccep
cipled position. Instead of talking to any a chance to rebuild its institutional ratificati(
To Weekend: of them, the reporters chose to inter- structures, especially the stewards The ins
I happened to read the article on the view Graves and Bekken who are not council-a body of elected represen- connect
GEO membership meeting of Nov. 18: GSA's but were vocal at the Nov. 18 tatives from the many work units or organizal
"GEO: At the crossroads once again" meeting. Non GSA's can be 'associate' departments which is supposed inter contract
in Weekend. The reporters paint the members of GEO under the constitution alia, to supervise the leadership mend fe
picture of a conflict between left wing because they are part of the em- (bargainers and steering committee), energy w
communists (who Lenin accused of suf- ployment pool. This also creates the and to publish minutes of its biweekly
fering from an infantile disorder), and opportunity for grad students who are meetings which are distributed to all
rightwing reformists (always ready to not eligible for appointments or are
capitulate to the establishment), with here with "free" money to get involved.
most of the members left out in the Sometimes involvement relates to the{'
cold. This was disturbing enough to social parts of contract issues like af- >Iii. $. /
make me check up on things, to firmative action.
discover that this was not really it at GEO has always tried to get a clause Letters to Weekend should betyp
all. th rcnrc xlaesi:on this in the contract. The UniversityLeertoWkndsodbeyp
First the procontract ex leadership: has always opposed it, but in recent signed. Unsigned letters will not be
The University Bargainers are paid times no group has pushed harder for edited for length, clarity, and grammar
professionals who have time and ex- this than GEO, whatever its leadership.
perience on their side. If you are on the Affirmative action probably requires f {Y" i:."J:?;,,.::.+-,,.:_RrJ.J
GEO- side it quickly gets to a point redefining university priorities, and ...............
where if you haven't personally quit the has to be pursued by a broad based
Weekend Weekend is edited and managed by students on the Weekend, (313) 7634
Fridoy, December 3, 1982 staff of The Michigan Daily at 420 Maynard, Ann Ar- Daily, 764-0552; Circulal
Vol.Issue bor, Michigan, 48109. It appears in the Friday edition tising, 764-0554.
Magazine Editor............ Richard Campbell of the Daily every week during the University year
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campus and city. ,
. 3
Begun in 1967, that program is the most
extensive in the country and offers a
selection of between 12 and 14 courses
each year from which students must
choose at least two during their four
years.
The department's course on "Dying,
Death, and Grief" examines various
aspects of clinical care for dying patien-
ts. It even offers students the chance to
do volunteer work with these patients.
But Penn State's program is not
limited to medically oriented sources.
In "Images of Aging," students
examine what it feels like to be old by
reading selections from such writers as
Tennyson and Yeats, and by watching
movies like Wild Strawberries and
Harold and Maude.
Other sources use religious theories
program proves commitment to ethics
through required coursework is
feasible. Taren maintains, however,
that it is not feasible and, in fact, is not
particularly desirable. "Ethics are not
best learned in the classroom with 225-
plus students in one group. Teachers of
human values want dialogue. We have
the elective seminar and brown bag
(discussions) to get that dialogue," he
says.
Beyond that, says Taren, the .only
place to pick the training up is at work.
"The content is best taught in the real
world-in the patient care setting and
the wards," he says.
Pathology Prof. Gerald Abrams says
the medical school has no responsibility
to ethics training because such cour-
sework should come in the un-.
14 Weekend/December 3, 1982