Research-Project and Annotated Bibliography Draft
Due Final Due
Overview
“[I]n
1932 the normal of voluntary informed consent when based on a concept of
respect for the individual’s autonomy that outweighsthe beneficence of
medical treatment or research was not part of the ethos of American
researcher,” asserts ethicist John C. Fletcher.1
For
this project you will be conducting preliminary research that explores the
tension between the key concepts of medical beneficenceand individual
autonomyas they relate to the development of public health ethics. Your
goal is to read, analyze, and assemble sources that will enable you to
effectively apply Fletcher’s four-part framework to making
“trans-historical moral judgments,” the topic of your final paper.
Tasks
Your
final work will consist of two products: A research report and an annotated
bibliography.
The
research reportwill consist of a 500-word commentary in which you
describe your research process. Where did it take you? How did it evolve? How
did you select your final sources, and how do you know they are reliable? I
should, after reading your commentary, have a solid sense of your research
process and the significance of the source material you have selected to
annotate.
The
annotated bibliographyconsists of a list of six high-quality sources
that explain, analyze, or contextualize the key concepts of medical beneficence
and individual autonomy as they pertain to public health research and policy.
In annotating the sources, youmust do the following:
• Explain why the source is relevant, credible, and promising
• Summarize its findings
• Identify any experts or other sources cited within the source that would
merit further study, or that strengthen the source being discussed
• Explain what sets the source apart from others; does it complement or
counter them?
Your
annotations will be substantive; it is unlikely that you will be able to cover
each source in fewer than 250 words. Refer to the Norton Online Handbook (there
is a link on Blackboard) for guidance in formatting your annotations.
1 John C. Fletcher, “A Case
Study in Historical Relativism,” Tuskegee’s Truths: Rethinking the Tuskege
Syphilis Study, Ed. Susan M. Reverby (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2000) 280.
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Research Project and Annotated Bibliography Draft
Due Final Due
In
conducting this research, it will be critical that you read widely. You may
want to begin with a handbook, encyclopedia, or curriculum (such as the ASPH
curriculum on our Blackboard site) to get a feel for the topic. You will then
want to look up scholarly books (books are likely to be better initial sources
for this work) and articles that address the history and evolution of these
values, as well as any leading thinkers on the topic (here it will be useful for
you to refer to Fletcher’s footnotes, and those of other ethicists, in order to
“mine” the text).
In
beginning your research, you will want to document key termsthat appear
in your general reading. These key terms will then be the focus of your more
in-depth research, for which you should plan a trip to the library to meet with
a librarian. I encourage you to conduct these trips in pairs, as two heads
really are better than one. At the library you should be prepared to identify
an appropriate database for your search, as well as journals in the fields of
the history of medicine, bioethics, and public health.
J
