MCD BIO 60
Biomedical Ethics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Examination of importance of ethics in research and exploration of how and why bioethics is relevant to reproductive screening, policy formation, public regulation, and law. Provides foundation in traditional ethics, consideration of subcategories of bioethics, neuroethics, and eugenics, and how to apply ethics to contemporary issues in research and technology. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Great class! I would definitely recommend everyone to have it. It is challenging, but it's so worth it. Prof. Cvrkel is funny and knowledgeable and Jessica the TA is literally the BEST TA ever- she compliments the study of the class so well. If you are willing to commit and want to walk away with some solid knowledge, take the class. I make it A- in the end and I am not regretting taking the class. Selling the 2015 Fall edition of coursereader for MCDB 60. Message me at **********.
Great class! I would definitely recommend everyone to have it. It is challenging, but it's so worth it. Prof. Cvrkel is funny and knowledgeable and Jessica the TA is literally the BEST TA ever- she compliments the study of the class so well. If you are willing to commit and want to walk away with some solid knowledge, take the class. I make it A- in the end and I am not regretting taking the class. Selling the 2015 Fall edition of coursereader for MCDB 60. Message me at **********.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2019 - People say Dr. Gallagher is a bit on the boring/dry side which is fair but she's also very clear and able to emphasize what she wants you to know. It's more that she can be somewhat repetitive and can have very long trains of thought, but nevertheless many of the topics should be at least decently interesting to the average person. Among her strengths are that her lectures are extremely organized and, again, she emphasizes the main points that she wants you to know in lecture. This is absolutely critical. If you can force yourself to sustain that attention in class, you can save yourself hours of reading outside of class. What I ended up doing, actually, was to focus my energy on getting everything I could from her lectures and THEN doing the readings AFTER lecture instead of before lecture as suggested because then the readings were a breeze and I could ensure that I was making the connections and reviewing the points she wanted me to know. The class grading is structured as follows: Weekly quizzes: 10% - drop lowest 2 out of 9 weeks Section attendance / participation: 15% - note that both actually count Midterm 1: 20% Midterm 2 :20% Final exam: 35% Quizzes were simple, 2 questions long and were there just to check that you did the bare minimum. People essentially almost always got 100%. For attendance/participation, she has a clustered grading scheme where absences are punitive. In other words, it's set up as "0 or 1 absences" "2 absences" and so on as well as outstanding vs excellent vs good vs satisfactory vs unsatisfactory participation. It's somewhat convoluted and she sends an email at the end about it but essentially 1 unexcused absence will not harm you in any way whatsoever, but 2 unexcused absences with "excellent" (outstanding not allowed for 2 unexcused absences) participation automatically sets you back to an A- grade for participation. Midterm exams were split into Part 1 and Part 2 sections, with Part 1 being multiple choice/short answer. I felt like these were quite straightforward and they were pretty lenient on grading. Part 2 was an essay with a prompt that they gave you beforehand. Going to office hours / review session is very helpful in getting a sense of the direction you want to take - otherwise it's easy to get off track and write an essay that may not meet what they're looking for or falls into some major philosophy traps. Final exam has an additional Part 3 essay section where you aren't given the prompt beforehand and you must take an ethical stance and defend it on the fly for a case that she sets up for you. I personally felt that the final's Part 1 multiple choice was trickier and I regretted not reading the slides in more depth, something I didn't expect to have to do given that I had already put in a significant amount of effort into knowing each author's arguments quite well and her main points. However, I also ended up doing much better on the final than I had anticipated despite my concerns, and so did others. Averages for the exams were as follows: Midterm 1: nearly 87 Midterm 2: 88 Final: 89 (I asked her, as she didn't send a follow-up email as she did for the midterms) All in all, Dr. Gallagher is a super fair professor and if you ever need help, she will be very patient in ensuring that you have your questions properly answered. This is definitely a decent class to take to fulfill your philosophy/linguistics GE and I also loved having Maddy as my TA :).
Spring 2019 - People say Dr. Gallagher is a bit on the boring/dry side which is fair but she's also very clear and able to emphasize what she wants you to know. It's more that she can be somewhat repetitive and can have very long trains of thought, but nevertheless many of the topics should be at least decently interesting to the average person. Among her strengths are that her lectures are extremely organized and, again, she emphasizes the main points that she wants you to know in lecture. This is absolutely critical. If you can force yourself to sustain that attention in class, you can save yourself hours of reading outside of class. What I ended up doing, actually, was to focus my energy on getting everything I could from her lectures and THEN doing the readings AFTER lecture instead of before lecture as suggested because then the readings were a breeze and I could ensure that I was making the connections and reviewing the points she wanted me to know. The class grading is structured as follows: Weekly quizzes: 10% - drop lowest 2 out of 9 weeks Section attendance / participation: 15% - note that both actually count Midterm 1: 20% Midterm 2 :20% Final exam: 35% Quizzes were simple, 2 questions long and were there just to check that you did the bare minimum. People essentially almost always got 100%. For attendance/participation, she has a clustered grading scheme where absences are punitive. In other words, it's set up as "0 or 1 absences" "2 absences" and so on as well as outstanding vs excellent vs good vs satisfactory vs unsatisfactory participation. It's somewhat convoluted and she sends an email at the end about it but essentially 1 unexcused absence will not harm you in any way whatsoever, but 2 unexcused absences with "excellent" (outstanding not allowed for 2 unexcused absences) participation automatically sets you back to an A- grade for participation. Midterm exams were split into Part 1 and Part 2 sections, with Part 1 being multiple choice/short answer. I felt like these were quite straightforward and they were pretty lenient on grading. Part 2 was an essay with a prompt that they gave you beforehand. Going to office hours / review session is very helpful in getting a sense of the direction you want to take - otherwise it's easy to get off track and write an essay that may not meet what they're looking for or falls into some major philosophy traps. Final exam has an additional Part 3 essay section where you aren't given the prompt beforehand and you must take an ethical stance and defend it on the fly for a case that she sets up for you. I personally felt that the final's Part 1 multiple choice was trickier and I regretted not reading the slides in more depth, something I didn't expect to have to do given that I had already put in a significant amount of effort into knowing each author's arguments quite well and her main points. However, I also ended up doing much better on the final than I had anticipated despite my concerns, and so did others. Averages for the exams were as follows: Midterm 1: nearly 87 Midterm 2: 88 Final: 89 (I asked her, as she didn't send a follow-up email as she did for the midterms) All in all, Dr. Gallagher is a super fair professor and if you ever need help, she will be very patient in ensuring that you have your questions properly answered. This is definitely a decent class to take to fulfill your philosophy/linguistics GE and I also loved having Maddy as my TA :).
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2021 - The professor is very wholesome, kind, and caring about her students. She is extremely smart and knowledgable about bioethics. As long as you read, the quizzes are easy. There is one 6-8 page research paper that is worth thirty percent of your final grade, three quizzes worth thirty percent, participation points, and homework points. Le Goff is an excellent professor!
Summer 2021 - The professor is very wholesome, kind, and caring about her students. She is extremely smart and knowledgable about bioethics. As long as you read, the quizzes are easy. There is one 6-8 page research paper that is worth thirty percent of your final grade, three quizzes worth thirty percent, participation points, and homework points. Le Goff is an excellent professor!
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