Health-Related Courses

I. YLS Courses 

Law and Psychology
D. Simon
MW 4:10 – 6:00p
Law and Psychology: Wrongful Convictions (21575).This course will offer an application of experimental psychology to law, focusing specifically on the intersection of legal- and basic-psychological research with the criminal justice process. The research will be used to illuminate causes of mistaken verdicts, primarily, wrongful convictions. Topics to be covered include eyewitness identification, witness memory for events, police investigation and interrogation, detection of deceit, and jury decision making. Special attention will be devoted to discrepancies between how these topics are viewed from the legal and experimental perspectives. This course will be taught over the first half of the semester, ending at spring break (4 hours per week, for 7 weeks). Self-scheduled examination or paper option. 
2 units.

Health Care Finance and Regulation
F. Pasquale
W 3:10 – 5:00p
This class will focus on the financing and regulation of health care in the United States.  The goal is to give an overview of how the law encourages and discourages certain funding mechanisms and business opportunities.  We will also study how the legal structures surrounding licensure, Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and reimbursement are developing.  Can law promote access, quality, and cost-control in health care?  How should it handle inevitable trade-offs between those three goals? For at least one-quarter to one half of each class we will explore the types of incentives and opportunities that the current system creates for patients, doctors, insurers, hospitals, and other stakeholders.  We will also learn about the major funding sources for American health care, and how entitlements to care differ for the privately insured, publicly insured, and uninsured. Enrollment limited to fifty. Self-scheduled examination.
2 units.

Intellectual Property
F. Pasquale
TTh 4:10p-5:25p
This course will survey the basic doctrines of intellectual property ("IP") law, including patent, trademark, and copyright law. We will also briefly cover some related sui generis rights, including trade secrets, the right of publicity, and misappropriation. The course is intended both for those who intend to practice in an IP field and for those with a more general interest in the topic. Any specialized IP practitioner should have a working knowledge of IP areas outside his or her area of expertise. Since most lawyers' business models depend on the commodification of information, any practitioner should benefit from an understanding of this field. Enrollment limited to sixty. Self-scheduled examination.  
3 units. 

Access to Knowledge Practicum
L. DeNardis and L. Shaver
W 3:10 – 5:00p.
Students in this course will work on projects that promote innovation and distributive justice through the reform of intellectual property and telecommunications laws, treaties, and policies both internationally and in specific countries. These laws, treaties, and policies shape the delivery of health care services, technology, telecommunications access, education, and culture around the globe. Students will supplement their projects with theoretical readings and frequent contact with Information Society Project Fellows. Substantial Paper credit available. Permission of the instructor required. Enrollment limited to ten. 
2 or 3 units. 

Administrative Law
P. Lindseth
TTH 2:10 – 4:00 p
This course will review the legal, political, and historical foundations of the modern administrative state, focusing on the federal level. Topics will include administrative governance and the U.S. Constitution (procedural due process, separation of powers, and federalism), political oversight (legislative and executive), modes of administrative decision making (adjudication and rulemaking primarily), as well as particular issues associated with judicial review of administrative action (scope, availability, and timing). Our aim is to understand the development of administrative law over the last quarter century as part of a longer historical evolution, particularly since the New Deal. Casebook materials will be supplemented by readings from the secondary literature on administrative governance in the United States and elsewhere. Scheduled examination. 
4 units.

Many clinical courses also have health-related projects; please speak to the professors or student directors for more information.

II. Examples of Law and Health–Related Courses in the University
Please see the Yale University Online Course Information site for more information about these and other opportunities:

AMST229/SOCY198/ER&M231/WGSS229
Health Social Movements
Alondra Nelson
TTh 10.30-11.20 
Examination of how and why groups coalesce around issues of health and illness. Issues include racial discrimination and health; women's health and reproductive rights; sickle-cell anemia; environmental justice; breast cancer; and HIV/AIDS.

AMDST 406 01
The Spectacle of Disability
Staff
Examination of how people with disabilities are represented in U.S. literature and culture. How these representations, along with the material realities of disabled people, frame society’s understanding of disability; the consequences of such formulations. Various media, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, and memoirs, viewed through a wide range of analytical lenses.  Permission of instructor required.

HSHM 201 01
The Cultures of Western Medicine: A Historical Introduction
John Warner
MW 10.30-11.20 
A survey of medical thought, practice, institutions, and practitioners from classical antiquity to the present. Changing concepts of health and disease in Europe and America explored in their social, cultural, economic, scientific, technological, and ethical contexts. 
  
ECON  464 01
Information and Incentives in Health Care
Andrew Epstein - T 2.30-4.20
Topics relating to the provision of medical care in the United States, focusing on features brought about by asymmetric information, uncertainty, and incentive structures.
Prerequisite to Economics departmental seminars are two Economics core courses. Preregistration for junior and senior majors, held in Room 101, 28 Hillhouse Avenue, is required during the designated sign-up period.  Permission of instructor required.

EP&E380 01 (21685) /PLSC313
Bioethics, Politics, and Economics
Stephen Latham
Th 1.30-3.20
Ethical, political, and economic aspects of a number of contemporary issues in biomedical ethics. Topics include abortion, assisted reproduction, end-of-life care, research on human subjects, and stem cell research.  Permission of instructor required.

HSHM  235 01 (21489) /HIST234
Epidemics and Society in the West Since 1600
Frank Snowden
TTh 9.25-10.15 
The impact of epidemic diseases such as bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, and AIDS on society, public health, and the medical profession in comparative and international perspective. Topics include popular culture and mass hysteria, the mortality revolution, urban renewal and rebuilding, sanitation, the germ theory of disease, the emergence of scientific medicine, and debates over the biomedical model of disease.

HSHM 736 01 (22348) /HIST943/WGSS730
Health Politics, Body Politics
Naomi Rogers
T 9.25-11.15
A reading seminar on struggles to control, pathologize, and normalize human bodies, with a particular focus on science, medicine and the state, both in North America and in a broader global health context. Topics include colonialism and prostitution; repression and regulation of birth control; the teaching of sex education; the public celebration and denial of sexual difference; politics of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS; public health and legal efforts to define and restrict abortion; the pathologizing and identity politics of trans-gendered people; and the development and regulation of artificial insemination and other methods of reproductive technology.

MGT 698 01
Healthcare Finance & Economics
Howard Forman

MGT 699 01
Healthcare Leadership Seminar
Howard Forman

PLSC 157 01 (21618) /INRL523/PHIL458/PHIL658/EP&E379
Philosophy and Politics: Global Health
Thomas Pogge
W 3.30-5.20
The globalization of a uniform monopoly patent regime through the TRIPS Agreement illustrates how strongly the design of global institutional arrangements affects the still vast mortality and morbidity among the poor. Exploration of the problem, and of ideas for improving access by the poor to essential medicines. Expert visitors from relevant disciplines.  Permission of the instructor required.

PLSC248 01
The Politics of Health Care
William Kissick
Th 1.30-3.20
Economic and political forces in systems for financing and delivering health care from the early twentieth century to the present. Topics include the failure of the universal health security legislation of the 1990s, managed care, the quality of health care delivery, rising costs, and declining health insurance coverage. Particular attention to the distinctive economics of health care and insurance markets and how they illuminate the politics of medicine.  Permission of the instructor required.

PLSC 285 01 (21782) /RLST173
Bioethics: Freedom, Justice, and Religion
David Smith
TTh 2.30-3.45
Study of ways in which freedom, justice, and religious convictions may conflict with or reinforce each other. Fundamental issues of political philosophy viewed within the context of policy and philosophical arguments in bioethics.

WGSS 253 01 (21279)   
Women's Health: Global Issues
Naomi Rogers
Janet Henrich
MW 9.25-10.15 
Review of medical findings on gender-specific diseases (e.g., breast cancer, eating disorders); examination of the cultural context of studies on women’s health. Issues include reproduction; weight, body image, and eating; and the impact of violence against women.

Spring Term 2008 Law and Health Courses:

I. YLS Courses

Medicine, Ethics, and Law
A wide range of issues in contemporary medicine challenge common ethical values in ways that appear to invite new legal regulatory responses. There are scientific developments-such as new possibilities for genetic manipulations, for extending the life span so that most people will die only after prolonged disability, for extending viability earlier in fetal development with attendant risks of significant lifelong disability. There are organizational changes in the delivery of medical care that promote rationing of care in the service of goals inconsistent with individual patient welfare. There are research practices that also appear inconsistent with conventional conceptions of physicians' individualized commitment to patients. There are conventional exercises of physicians' authority, such as discretion to withhold therapies regarded by physicians as "futile," or of legislative regulatory authority, such as withholding authorization to use drugs regarded by regulators as socially harmful because they promote addiction or hasten death-all of which are now being contested as inconsistent with the values of individual autonomy (as in the physician-assisted suicide litigation in the Supreme Court). This course will examine such issues, evaluate the individual and social ethical questions raised by them, and explore the justifications for undoing customary legal regulations and/or adding new ones. Self-scheduled examination or paper option. R.A. Burt.

HIV/AIDs in Africa
This global health law seminar will be focused on some of the many legal problems touching on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. The participants will conduct research and write on issues at the intersection of population health, trade, law and development (4 classes), human and women’s rights (5 classes) and intellectual property (3 classes).  The seminar addresses the overlapping concerns associated with a virus that is decimating Southern and Eastern Africa.  Participants will develop an expansive understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of the pandemic while simultaneously becoming experts in a specific subject.  Students will think critically about their chosen assignment and to consider the linkages between development orthodoxy, human rights abuses, the role of NGOs and the contentious question of patents on life-saving pharmaceutical products.  N. Novogrodsky.

Engineering & Ownership of Life
This seminar will consider the development of biological knowledge and control in relation to intellectual property rights in living organisms. Topics will include agribusiness, medicine, biotechnology, and patent law. Paper required. Permission of the instructor required. This course will meet according to the Yale College calendar. Also HIST 938au, HSHM 676au. Enrollment limited to ten Law students. D.J. Kevles. 
 
Globalization, Development, Poverty & Law
Globalization seems to be inexorable, bringing both benefits as well as challenges to the developing world. The consensus on alleviating global poverty through the rule of law masks a wide divergence of theories, policies, strategies, and approaches. This seminar will examine a range of understandings of the "rule of law," and how public policies may promote, hinder, or be irrelevant to these goals. The class will focus on the role of laws and legal institutions, both domestic and international, in such specific policy contexts as economic growth, poverty reduction, foreign investment, corruption, gender, health, environment, and trade, often based on actual World Bank cases. Major themes will include the role of the public sector versus the private sector; the normative policy content of laws and legal institutions; and the inevitable trade-offs in decision making in addressing these challenges. Students will be required to submit brief response papers on each class readings. 2 units for take home essay exam; and 3 units for research paper. The paper topic must be chosen, in consultation with the instructor, by the middle of the term. K-Y. Tung

International Intellectual Property & Development
Do intellectual property rights help or harm the world's poor? The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) stands on the verge of adopting a "development agenda" that would potentially rewrite that body's mandate, placing the concerns of the poor at the center of international intellectual property law and policy. This course will introduce the legal and institutional architecture of international intellectual property, with special emphasis on the challenges of integrating development concerns therein. We will draw upon empirical research and interdisciplinary literature in development and cultural studies to explore more deeply the links between cultural production and development. Economic remuneration from cultural production will be an important source of revenue and stimulus for development in the Knowledge Age. At the same time, royalty demands from intellectual property owners may at times retard development. We will take up several critical issues in international intellectual property, including health, traditional knowledge, geographical indications, agriculture, genetic resources, open source collaboration, and access to knowledge. Paper required. M. Sunder. 

Introduction to Intellectual Property
This course will introduce the core doctrines of intellectual property, including trade secret, patent, copyright, and trademark. We will consider the rationales for intellectual property protection, as well as the challenges posed to these rationales by the Internet and digital technology, open source innovation, social movements, and the expansion of intellectual property to the developing world. Self-scheduled examination. M. Sunder. 

Access to Knowledge Practicum
Students in this course will work on projects that promote innovation and distributive justice through the reform of intellectual property and telecommunications laws, treaties, and policies both internationally and in specific countries. These laws, treaties, and policies shape the delivery of health care services, technology, telecommunications access, education, and culture around the globe. Students will supplement their projects with theoretical readings and frequent contact with Information Society Project Fellows. Permission of the instructor required. Paper required. Enrollment limited to eight. E. Katz.   

Administrative Law
A course on the behavior of administrative agencies and their interaction with courts and legislatures, emphasizing the contributions of social science. In addition to studying some of the procedural issues of primary concern to reviewing courts, the course will consider the use of economic and scientific expertise in helping to determine agency choices. The course will blend substantive policy issues with procedural questions by focusing on the regulation of health and safety in the environment, in the workplace, and in the product market. Self-scheduled examination. S. Rose-Ackerman.   

II. Examples of Law and Health–Related Courses in the University
Please see the Yale University Online Course Information site for more information about these and other opportunities:

EP&E 319 01 (20908) /ECON467
Issues in Health Economics
Howard Forman
An application of microeconomic, finance, and policy tools to the analysis of health care delivery, domestically and internationally. Health economics theory and applications to central issues in the U.S. health care system.

F&ES 80039 01 (23702)  
Bioethics, Health, and Human Flourishing
Ruth Purtilo
This course explores bioethical issues that arise around the religious and social ideal of human flourishing, and what we should do as moral agents to help define and foster it.

PLSC 285 01 (21546) /RLST867/RLST174/REL871
Bioethics, Religion, and the Limits of Freedom
David Smith
Readings from the works of selected contemporary writers in biomedical ethics, with special attention to the authors’ philosophical and theological methods. Focus on issues at the end of life and on questions of justice in health care. Discussion of the relationship among religion, ethics, and public policy. 

HIST 937 01 (22503) /HSHM631/HSHM321/HIST233
The Cultures of Western Medicine: A Historical Introduction
John Warner
A survey of medical thought, practice, institutions, and practitioners from classical antiquity through the present. Changing concepts of health and disease in Europe and America explored in their social, cultural, economic, scientific, technological, and ethical contexts.   

WGSS 253 01 (21769)  
Women’s Health
Naomi Rogers,  Janet Henrich
Review of medical findings on gender-specific diseases (e.g., breast cancer, eating disorders); examination of the cultural context of studies on women’s health. Issues include reproduction; weight, body image, and eating; and the impact of violence against women.