Teaching

Graduate Teaching

I regularly teach and supervise students in the Master of Health Ethics program and am currently accepting graduate students.

Graduate Courses

Health Ethics Theory (MED6800)

The focus of the course is the variety of philosophical approaches, or philosophical methods, employed in bioethics. We explore frameworks such as a principles-based approach, casuistry, and narrative ethics, looking at cases in their favour and at criticisms. We also examine the concepts of the common morality and reflective equilibrium, and feminist approaches to bioethics. 

Special Topics in Health Ethics: Reproductive Ethics (MED6807)

This course explores various moral issues in human reproduction. Topics include what might count as good reasons for and against having children, and access to reproductive technologies. We also consider genetic enhancement, where we look at arguments against enhancement, and arguments in favour of the moral duty to enhance one’s children.

Undergraduate and Postgraduate Medicine

Along with my bioethics colleagues, I design and deliver the bioethics curriculum to undergraduate medical students and medical residents. With medical undergraduates, we review the basics of moral theory, and discuss specific topics such as reproduction, public health ethics, and pediatric ethics. I also teach various groups of medical residents. 

Currently, I facilitate a bioethics reading group for undergraduate medical students. We meet monthly, and read on topics such as abortion, medical assistance in dying, and organ allocation.

Graduate Students Supervised 

Kristen Byrne (Master of Health Ethics, 2021), thesis option: “Duty to Warn for Genetic Testing: The Importance of Understanding Harm when Applying The President’s Commission’s Standards of Disclosure.”

Winifred Badaiki (Master of Health Ethics, 2020), research papers option:

  • “Reproductive Justice and Capabilities: The Case of Nigerian Women”
  • “The Medicalization of Female Genital Cutting”
  • “Public Funding of Uterine Transplantation in Canada”

Biplab Halder (Master of Health Ethics, 2020), thesis option: “Justice in Resource Allocation and Ethics in Reproductive Health: An Analysis of the System of Community Health Clinics in Bangladesh.”

Sarah Devereux (Master of Health Ethics, 2017), capstone project option: “An Ethical Review of Eastern Health’s Advance Care Planning Policy in Practice.”