One of the classes almost all PA schools have in their curriculum is ethics. I think this class is overlooked by many students as "the easy class," and it does not get the recognition it should. My appreciation for ethics developed in Dr. Childs class at ACPHS in Bioethics. He not only went over the famous cases of Kevorkian and Schiavo but he also forced us to think hard about our decisions and evaluate them in every way before we came to a conclusion on a case. Dr. Stoddart does the same thing with his ethics class. He brings in many different speakers on various issues to teach the class about the famous cases. (Its definitely nice to have a good background from Dr. Childs though!) However, unlike Dr. Childs whose class was based on class discussion, Dr. Stoddart assigned groups to different ethical questions that needed to be debated--mainly so that we could learn from one another! The presentation was not based on public speaking ability but on content and perceived passion for a side of the debate. Many students present their cases well with strong points and defend them with statistics (and I have learned so much about all these ethical issues since we started the debates!) Our topic was about if providers should be asking patients about guns in their home. We presented the Pros and Cons including rebuttals for each. Pros: its for the benefit of many different patients such as children, elderly, mentally ill, and many others. It is just a question, if someone does not want to answer it, they can simply state that. Cons: there is not enough counseling of providers right now to offer counseling on the topic. It will ruin the patient-provider relationship and possibly dampen the trust and rapport with the patient. ... After we opened the floor for questions it seemed like everyone had an opinion and was itching to share it. There was very little on this topic because all the laws that are passed banning providers from asking this question are fairly recent. With that being said, our group got slammed at then end with questions about why we should even ask now and what would we even do with this information. However, this is a very touchy subject because it brings out many political views and people start to get angry and frustrated with one another. We all have to remember that it was just a project and we still have over 2 years left together...political views have no role in that 2 years. I am just glad that this controversial project is over because I hate bringing up politics in any conversation unless someone else has similar views to me. There is no sense in arguing over opinions. Granted, this project was about medicine but it also had many legal components and involved firearms.
Overall, I have learned a lot of new ideas from the students in my class at PA school... but looking back... one of the strong points about the HHS program at ACPHS is that it requires every student to take public speaking with a phenomenal communications professor, Dr. Denvir. Had I not taken classes with this instructor I would still be shaking and studdering over my words. Over the years at ACPHS I did not just become a good public speaker, I learned how to carry an audience with my words. For any ACPHS students looking for a challenge, I seriously recommend taking his public speaking course (or any course with him) because I would not be where I am today if I could not give presentations with confidence.
Overall, I have learned a lot of new ideas from the students in my class at PA school... but looking back... one of the strong points about the HHS program at ACPHS is that it requires every student to take public speaking with a phenomenal communications professor, Dr. Denvir. Had I not taken classes with this instructor I would still be shaking and studdering over my words. Over the years at ACPHS I did not just become a good public speaker, I learned how to carry an audience with my words. For any ACPHS students looking for a challenge, I seriously recommend taking his public speaking course (or any course with him) because I would not be where I am today if I could not give presentations with confidence.