This course, which I teach at the University of Alabama, emerged from my primary research specialization, medical epistemology, and medical decision-making. I’m interested in explaining how modern medical research methodologies and evidence are used for therapeutic inference and clinical decision-making and uncovering the challenges with historical and contemporary approaches to inference in medicine. I primarily teach this course to philosophy majors in our department’s Philosophy and Medicine Concentration and to science students in the institution’s very strong pre-medical program.
I developed the course around central questions in the philosophy of medicine, aiming for a deep introduction to the key conceptual and epistemological challenges facing this practically important science we engage with on a near-daily basis. Throughout its development, the course has retained elements from my initial inspiration, a section of an undergraduate module given by Jacob Stegenga at the University of Cambridge, and his introductory text on Philosophy of Medicine, Care & Cure (2018), which I believe provides students with a great overview of the discipline. Over time, I have modified my pedagogical approach to better capture features of the medical system in the United States and make the material more accessible through the inclusion of case studies and media aimed at illustrating the real-world implications of the topics discussed.
Philosophy is often seen as a discipline with little practical importance, and so, another of my goals with this course is to show how the questions we ask in philosophy of medicine carry genuine weight in medical science and in the clinic. From inferences about therapeutic effectiveness and the principles underlying disease classification to emergency decision-making and public health policy, the methods and concepts in medicine deserve deep philosophical consideration. I’ve found that for many students, this is the best part of the course. Having examples of how philosophical analysis helps uncover the sources of concrete problems in a scientific discipline they are deeply interested in, makes the material matter even more to them and instills a feeling of sincere care in their examinations of medical research and inference.
I try to carry this sense of practical importance over to other courses I teach, like philosophy of science and philosophy of AI, with slightly less success. The problems we deal with in medicine tend to carry more visceral weight than those in broader examinations of science and the oftentimes detached and opaque science of AI. This makes these clinical challenges more appealing and interesting to students. I’ve found that the recipe of emotional connection, intellectual intricacy, and practical importance makes my philosophy of medicine course, and the pedagogical approach I’ve adopted, quite popular with students.
Overall, I think the topics and issues covered in my syllabus provide a good introduction to the philosophy of medicine. That said, I’m planning to include scenes from various medical drama series (e.g., “The Pitt”) that are considered by physicians and medical researchers to be realistic depictions of healthcare scenarios the next time I teach this course. My aim is to embed philosophy in the dramatized, yet medically vetted situations in these scenes to foster philosophical reflection that feels urgent, consequential, and real. I’m deeply committed to finding new ways to show how the philosophy of science, medicine, and technology can contribute to the practical improvement of different approaches in these areas.
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