EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
LLB SPECIALIZATION IN HEALTH LAW AND POLICY
[Note: For the purposes of any Dalhousie Law School Certificate program, only those courses pursued at Dalhousie Law School during the student's LLB studies which lead to successful completion of a Dalhousie University LLB degree will be recognized. Students are not permitted to count a course towards more than one certificate.]
GRADUATE STUDIES IN HEALTH LAW AND POLICY
The Health Law Institute is in receipt of a training grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research that provides scholarship and other capacity-building funds to promote graduate studies in health law and policy. While there is no Health Law and Policy specialization annotation for LLM transcripts, all of the courses (with the exception of LAWS 2167.03: the Health Law Placement, and LAWS 2157.14: the Health Law Exchange) are open to LLM students. In addition, LLM students may do their supervised thesis research within the Health Law and Policy field. Health Law Institute faculty members offer a breadth of experience in areas such as death and dying, research involving humans, privacy, public health, licensing and regulation of health professionals, health reform, and the effects of health regulation and reform on vulnerable populations. Students interested in pursuing an LLM are encouraged to visit or call the Institute to discuss research interests.
It is possible to pursue an interdisciplinary PhD drawing on such disciplines as philosophy, law, and medicine. Each program of study will be unique and must be negotiated with the Faculty of Graduate Studies and prospective faculty supervisors.
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Advanced Negligence: Medical Malpractice: LAWS 2192
This course will examine, from a theoretical perspective, issues of potential liability of hospitals, health care professionals, product suppliers, and governments for their respective roles in the provision of health services. Topics covered may include: the learned intermediary rule; non-delegable duties and vicarious liability; tort/contract overlap; the fault standard and comprehensive compensation for injury; potential government liability, especially re the blood supply and sexual sterilization; reproductive technologies and malpractice; and issues of consent, including capacity of minors and those with mental impairment to consent to treatment.
INSTRUCTOR: E. Gibson
FORMAT: 2 hours per week, 3 credits
ENROLMENT: Limited to 16 students
EVALUATION: Major research paper, class presentation, and class participation
Health Care Ethics and the Law: LAWS 2115
The purpose of this class is to develop an understanding of health law and health care ethics and of the relationship between law and ethics. Topics covered in past years include: informed choice; death and dying; genetics; reproduction; HIV and AIDS; resource allocation; health research; and public health. Each issue is examined in an effort to determine what the law is and what the law ought to be.
INSTRUCTOR: J. Downie
FORMAT: 2 hours per week, 3 credits
ENROLMENT: Limited to 16 students
EVALUATION: Major research paper (70%), class presentation (20%), and class participation (10%)
Health Law: LAWS 2132
This class is designed to expose students to a wide range of legal issues that arise in the field of health law. It introduces students to the health care system and relevant laws governing health care delivery. Topics covered include: licensing and regulation of health care professionals; consent; confidentiality and disclosure of health information; public health; mental disability; biomedical research involving humans; and decision-making at the end of life.
INSTRUCTOR: M. Hadskis
FORMAT: 3 hours per week, 3 credits
ENROLMENT: Limited to 60 students
EVALUATION: Final examination (100%) or final examination/minor paper (60%/40%)
Health Law and Policy: Current Issues : LAWS 2193
This course offers an opportunity for students to engage critically with a set of lectures in health law and policy offered through the Health Law Institute seminar series. These lectures are presented by distinguished guest speakers from a variety of scholarly disciplines and professional fields related to health law and policy. Students enrolled in this course for academic credit are required to do readings in advance and to attend each monthly seminar and accompanying tutorial. They will also write a series of reaction papers as well as a minor paper 15-20 pages in length.
The content of this course changes from year to year, depending on the speakers and issues selected for presentation. Recent topics have included legal developments in the patenting of plants and animals; the implications of mass torts and class actions in the Canadian health care setting; the relationship between law, medicine and disability rights; and negligence in conception, abortion and birth.
Students should review the series announcement available in mid-August for a list of dates, speakers, and topics to be covered in the upcoming year.
INSTRUCTOR: W. Lahey
ENROLMENT: 16
NOTE: This course runs over two terms.
EVALUATION: Reaction papers (3-4 pages each) 30%, one minor paper (15-20 pages) 55%, seminar and tutorial attendance and participation 15%.
Health Law Exchange: LAWS 2157
This program is intended to give students, under the umbrella of the NACLE exchanges, the opportunity to study law (with an emphasis in health law) at one of the leading health law programs in the United States. Students who have completed two years of full-time study may spend one semester at the University of Houston and receive full credit towards their degree at Dalhousie. Health law classes offered at Houston include the following: Biotechnology and the Law; Comparative Health Law; Disabilities and the Law; Elder Law; Food and Drug Law; Forensic Medicine; Genetics and the Law; Health Privacy; HIV and the Law; Law and Psychiatry; Legal Aspects of Bioethics; Medical Malpractice Litigation; Public Health Law; Regulation of Biomedical Resarch; Regulation of Health Care Professionals; Women and Health Care Law; etc.
[Please note that health law courses taken at the University of Houston on exchange will not count towards a Dalhousie specialization certificate in Health Law and Policy.]
COORDINATOR: M. Hadskis
ENROLMENT: Limited to 2 students per term
EVALUATION: Depends upon the classes taken at Houston
CREDIT: Up to 14 credit hours
PREREQUISITE: Health Law, LAWS 2132.02
Health Law Placement: LAWS 2167
This placement provides students with the opportunity to work with health law practitioners in Halifax (either at the Capital District Health Authority, the Nova Scotia Department of Health, or the IWK Health Centre). Students will take part in the work of their placement supervisor, assisting with research and other tasks as requested. Students will be required to spend nine hours a week on placement work.
Students will be evaluated on the basis of performance in the placement including assessment of memoranda written for the placement supervisor. Evaluation will be conducted by the faculty supervisor in consultation with the placement supervisor. This class does not fulfil the major paper requirement.
Students will be selected by the faculty supervisor on the basis of academic standing and demonstrated interest in the field of health law. Only students who have taken Health Law 2132 will be eligible. Students who enroll in Health Law 2132 for the fall term are welcome to apply for winter term placement positions; however, please note: 1) these applications will only be considered if Winter term positions are left open after the faculty supervisor makes his/her initial selection decisions in June; and 2) decisions will not be made until after such students complete their fall term courses.
Interested students must apply to the Director of the Health Law Institute directly, in writing, by June 19 of the academic year in which they wish to do the placement. Applications shall consist of a written statement confirming the student's experience and/or interest in health law, and a copy of law school grades to date.
FACULTY SUPERVISOR: M. Hadskis
PLACEMENT SUPERVISOR: Director, Risk Management and Legal Services, CDHA; Senior Director, Legislative Policy and Research, N.S. Dept. of Health; or Risk Management and Legal Counsel, IWK Health Centre.
CREDIT HOURS: Three
ENROLMENT: Normally, there will be one placement per term with each placement supervisor.
EVALUATION: Honours/Pass/Fail
PREREQUISITE: Health Law, LAWS 2132.02
Health Systems Law and Policy: LAWS 2159
(not on offer for 2009-10 academic year)
Traditionally, health law scholarship has focused on the physician-patient relationship; however, increasingly, lawyers are turning their attention to larger system issues and the complex web of relationships between governments, private insurers, doctors and other health professionals, public and private hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and patients.
This course will focus on the structure and dynamics of Canada's health care system. It will locate Canada's system amongst the variety of approaches taken internationally to the financing and allocation of health insurance and health services and to the regulation of the quality of health services.
Issues to be explored include what different theories of distributive justice demand in terms of access to health care, the extent of market failure in health insurance and health service markets, how to determine what services are publicly funded and means of review of these decisions, how to ensure the accountability of decision-makers, why the present system fails Aboriginal peoples, regulation of privately financed health care (in vitro services, drugs, medical equipment, home care, etc.), the shift from institutional care to care in the home, the need for reform of the medical malpractice system, managed care, and general issues of privatization, deregulation and reregulation.
INSTRUCTOR: W. Lahey
FORMAT: 2 hours per week, 3 credits
ENROLMENT: 20
EVALUATION: Major research paper (60%), policy formulation and reflection exercise (30%), and general class participation (10%)
Mental Disability Law: LAWS 2127
This seminar concentrates on issues involving those who are described as having a mental health problem or an intellectual disability. The class surveys many central topics, including the history and conceptualization of mental disorder, substantive and constitutional aspects of involuntary civil commitment, the legal response to alleged incompetence, the right to treatment and to refuse treatment, misuses of power and remedies, advocacy services and the intersection of mental disability and the criminal justice system.
Students are encouraged to develop their understanding of the rules and policies of the legal system and to heighten their awareness of this form of inequality and discrimination.
INSTRUCTOR: Archie Kaiser
ENROLMENT: Limited to 20 students.
EVALUATION: Major paper (3 credit hours) or term assignments (2 credit hours); a class presentation and class participation are also required for each student.
Directed Research Paper
A student may undertake an original research project for credit under the direction of a faculty member. The topic must be one that falls outside the parameters of seminar classes offered in the year, and there must be a faculty member willing to supervise the project. (See calendar for further information.)
OTHER FACULTY COURSES
Students may also take a limited number of non-law courses for credit towards their law degree in related subjects offered at the graduate level in other academic departments of the University e.g., Bioethics and Philosophy. Please note, however, that non-law courses do not count for credit towards the LLB Specialization in Health Law and Policy.
Students with such interests should review Law School regulations for requirements which include obtaining written consent of the Department or School involved as well as the Assistant Dean of the Law School. Students wishing assistance in the selection of classes within the area of Health Law are advised to consult the Director or faculty members of the Institute.