Abstract
The need for an explicit nurturing of ethical lens to public health practice has been increasingly stated, yet such training is rare and/or inadequate. Very few public health education programs in India have an explicit module on public health ethics, and even where imparted, it is skewed towards biomedical and/or research ethics. This chapter takes the readers through a journey on designing and transacting a course on Ethics in Public Health Practice as part of a Master’s Program in Development in Azim Premji University. It shows how clarity in learning objectives with pedagogical processes including case studies, simulations, film discussions and group work can go a long way in building capacity of public health professionals to develop skills in discerning ethical dilemmas and conceive of possibilities of resolutions through continuous deliberations and reflections. This course demystifies ethics as the prerogative of “ethicists” by bringing home the point that ethics is integral to public health practice and hence public health training must embed ethics explicitly and intentionally in its programs. It hence expands the discussion of public health ethics to include the wider canvas of public health practice including agenda setting, policy-making, program design, implementation and evaluation and research settings.
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Notes
- 1.
The university was set up under the Karnataka State University Act in 2010. See for more details about the university www.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in.
- 2.
See for details on course goals vs learning objectives https://teach.its.uiowa.edu/sites/teach.its.uiowa.edu/files/docs/docs/Goals_vs_Objectives_ed.pdf accessed on November 17, 2017.
- 3.
Power Walk is widely used in training on gender, equity lens in program implementation, etc. in different settings. The simulation exercise can be widely adapted to suit the contexts and requirements of learning objectives. See for more details Pradhan et al. (2010), UNICEF https://www.unicef.org/tdad/jjpowerwalk.do.
- 4.
- 5.
The university offers a week-long course on Ethics in public health practice to in-service professionals; see www.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/http://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/SitePages/University-resource-centre-events-ethics-in-public-health-practice-2018.aspx.
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Acknowledgements
This chapter is a collective journey of learning and reflecting with my students who opted for this course. I owe sincerest thanks to all the students of both the batches in 2015–2017 and 2016–2018 in the elective on Ethics in Public Health Practice. Special note of thanks to Arvind, Bhakti, Deep, Pawan and Eshani who have shared their detailed reflections beyond the assignments. I have also learnt a lot from the participants in the short course on Ethics in Public Health Practice which I anchored. I extend sincere thanks to my colleagues – Benson, Shreelata, Sreeparna, Prasanna and Stefi – who co-facilitated the short course. Kalyani (my former colleague and co-editor of this volume) deserves a special mention for co-desigining this course and sharing critical inputs to the draft of this chapter.
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Mishra, A. (2018). “Now We Feel Ethics Is Everywhere”: Reflections on Teaching a Course on Ethics in Public Health Practice. In: Mishra, A., Subbiah, K. (eds) Ethics in Public Health Practice in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2450-5_10
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