LLM Module Breakdown – Medical Law and Ethics

Welcome to another blog post! Now, for those that are regular viewers of my blog, the title might ring a bell to some of you. I have spent the last three years sharing a module breakdown for every module on my undergraduate degree. I’m now doing my LLM in Medical Law and Ethics and so I thought it was about time I did a module breakdown for the modules I’m taking on my postgraduate degree!

The modules that I’m taking for my degree are:

• Medical Law and Ethics
• Mental Health Law
• Research Methods Training
• Healthcare Regulatory Law
• Media Law, Defamation and Privacy

I will also be doing a dissertation for my degree. Of course, that is a completely different beast so even though I will blog about my experience, it won’t be in the same format.

Talking of formats, if you’ve read my previous module breakdown posts, then expect to see more or less the same structure. The only difference is there won’t be a separate lecture and tutorial section.

Today’s post will be on Medical Law and Ethics. Let’s get to it!

Content

Medical Law and Ethics covered a variety of topics. I didn’t quite realise how vast this area of law was going in but I absolutely loved all of the units we looked at. I should mention there were 10 units in total, including an introductory unit. Here is a list of what we went through.

• Consent and Capacity
• Medical Negligence
• Confidentiality
• Organ Donation
• Assisted Dying
• Mental Health Law
• Abortion and Assisted Conception
• Resource Allocation
• Medical Research

Workshops

Workshops occurred for this module once a week. They were 2 hours long, and each workshop was dedicated to one unit. Of course, with there being 10 units, that means there were 10 workshops.

As these are workshops, you can imagine that they were very interactive. This was something that I was not really expecting going in. They felt similar to my optional modules that I did for my undergraduate degree. However, the workshops for my postgraduate degree are designed around the preparation questions we have to do. For my optional modules within my undergraduate degree, the lectures were at their core still lectures with elements of interaction. I would compare these workshops to tutorials or seminars.

Assignment

The assignment for this particular module was a 3 hour exam. There were 5 questions to choose from, and we had to answer 3 of them. These were a mix of essay and problem questions and there wasn’t a set amount of what ones we had to do. I liked that as it allowed me to get a really good mix.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this module. It acted as the confirmation I needed that this is the area I want to practice in. Every topic area within this module was intriguing and interesting in its own way. I look forward to exploring more of this area of law as I move forward with my career!

And that’s it! Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read this post and I will see you soon for another one!

Beth