Program Overview

Program Details

The program details are as follows:

Course Information

• Course Name: Global Health Ethics
• Course Number: BETH 710
• Subject & Catalog Number: BETH 710
• Instructor: Unini Odama
• Term: 2025 Fall
• Duration: Full Term, Sept. 2, 2025 – Dec. 19, 2025
• Schedule: Mondays, 7:30pm - 8:59pm
• Class Number: 23840
• Enrollment: 14/15
• Waitlist: 0

Description

This course will examine foundational normative problems and pragmatic ethical challenges facing those who work in some capacity to improve health outcomes for very poor populations living under conditions of severe resource scarcity. We will interrogate basic conceptual ideas such as “what do we mean by ‘global health equity’?” and the nature and root sources of “resource scarcity”, in addition to focusing on specific practical concerns such as:

• how to conduct ethical responsible research on and with socially and economically disadvantaged and vulnerable populations
• macro-economic and micro-bedside resource allocation dilemmas
• health care worker “brain drain” from poor to rich locales

Class Notes

Please note new course day/time - Mondays, 7:30-9PM ET. All cross-registration petitions will be reviewed starting Monday, 8/25.

School and Department

• School: Harvard Medical School
• Department: Bioethics
• Course Component: Lecture
• Instruction Mode: Online
• Subject: Bioethics
• Grading Basis: HMS Ordinal

Course Requirements

This course is only open to HMS Masters in Bioethics students.

Cross-Registration

Available for Harvard Cross Registration

Credits

• Credits: 2

Curriculum Phase

N/A

Visiting Clerks

N/A

Course Type

N/A

Credit Conversion

N/A

Cross-Registration Dates

N/A