Medicine, Science & Society

Teaching staff: Dr Karen Lowton

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/geront/people/academic/lowton.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM503
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 15
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
Assessment:  coursework 
1 x 3,500 word report

This module aims to convey the fundamentals of qualitative research design in the social sciences including research methods, sampling, field work, analysis and ethics. It aims to equip students with the knowledge, skills and understanding required to conduct qualitative research in social science and health.

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
• Formulate appropriate research questions.
• Select the most appropriate research design to address a specific research problem.
• Demonstrate knowledge of common research deigns and methods used in qualitative research (interviews, focus groups and observation).
• Design and administer a brief topic guide and critically discuss its strengths and weaknesses.
• Analyse qualitative data using simple coding
• Demonstrate the ability to design and conduct a small original qualitative research project.
• Demonstrate the ability to structure a written qualitative research report.

Indicative Reading

Grbich C (1999) Qualitative Research in Health. Sage, Australia
Charmaz K (2006) Constructing Grounded Theory, Sage, London
Gray D (2009) Doing Research in the Real World (2nd edition), Sage, London

Teaching staff: Dr. Karen Glaser

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/geront/people/academic/glaser.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM502
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 15
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
Assessment:  coursework 
1 x 3000 word report (100%)

This module aims to enable students to develop an understanding of ethical research design in quantitative studies (survey and experiments) as well as wider research issues. To prepare students to apply this knowledge in a research context such as their masters’ dissertation or health services research.

On completion of the module students will be able to:
1. Formulate appropriate research questions.
2. Select the most appropriate research design to address a specific research problem.
3. Demonstrate knowledge of common research designs and methods used in quantitative research (survey and experiments).
4. Design and administer a brief questionnaire and critically discuss its strengths and weaknesses.
5. Critically review methods used in published studies in social sciences and in health services research.

Indicative Reading

1. Gray DE. (2009) Doing research in the real world 2nd edition. London, Sage
2. de Vaus, DA 2002, Surveys in Social Research. 5th Edition, Routledge, London.
3. Bowling, A 1997, Research methods in health: Investigating health and health services, Open University Press, Buckingham.

Teaching staff: TBC
Module code: 7SSHM003
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 60
Semester:  Full-year 
Teaching pattern: Private Study
Workshops
Tutorials
Assessment:  written examination/s 
1 x 1,000 word proposal (10%)
1 x 15 - 18,000 word dissertation (90%)



1. To develop students’ capacity to conduct research through critical and systematic enquiry related to medicine, science and society and to develop their skills in research design.
2. To give students the opportunity to investigate an area of biomedicine in depth by planning and executing a small-scale independent social research project.
3. To develop students’ skills in the complexities of data collection, representation and analysis.
4. To develop students’ critical understanding of the process and the contested issues entailed in doing social research.
5. To develop students’ ability to critically analyse and synthesise in an extended piece of writing (15,000 words) involving extensive literature review, and critical evaluation of research methods, reporting and interpreting findings.
6. To develop students' research and writing skills so they can fulfil the professional and academic roles expected of students with a Master's education,
7. To provide students with a policy analysis framework to enable them to critically discuss the framing of research issues by policy and the policy implications of research.

Teaching staff: Dr Scott Vrecko

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/people/academic/Dr-Scott-Vrecko.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM600
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 30
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Teaching pattern: The modules is taught through a mixture of lectures and seminars
Assessment:  coursework 
2,000 word formative essay
7,000 assessed essay (100%)

This module is designed to introduce students to social science perspectives on science and medicine. It aims to give a comprehensive survey of the key literature, themes and issues in the interrelated field of science studies and medical sociology. Specifically, the module aims to:

• Critically discuss the multifaceted theories and concepts used in science studies and medical sociology
• Critically explore key contested social science perspectives on the interrelated fields of medicine and science
• Critically illuminate the complex nature of multidisciplinary research on medicine, science and society
• Critically illustrate core themes through a series of in-depth case studies

Teaching staff: Dr Claire Marris

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/people/academic/marris/Dr-Claire-Marris.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM601
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 30
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: The module is taught through a mixture of lectures and seminars
Assessment:  coursework 
2,000 word formative essay
7,000 word summative assessed (100%)

This module is designed to introduce students to social science perspectives on how scientific knowledge is translated from the lab to the clinic. The module explores a series of case studies of translational research; evaluates different theoretical approaches to investigating the links between medicine, science and society; focusing on the social science framing of the interaction between the bench and the bedside. Specifically, the module aims to:

• Critically appraise social science perspectives on the multifaceted interface between science and medicine.
• Critically discuss key social science perspectives on the contested interaction between ‘the bench and the bedside’
• Critically explore the complex nature of multidisciplinary research on medicine, science and society
• Critically examine core themes on the social science of the ‘lab-clinic interface’ through a series of in-depth case studies

Teaching staff: Dr Mayumi Hayashi

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/geront/people/academic/Hayashi.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM505
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 15
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
Assessment:  coursework 
1 x 3,500 words (100%)

This module aims to provide students with a critical understanding of the implications of population ageing and rising life expectancy in populations across the developed and developing world. Cross-national examples will be drawn from Europe and the English speaking countries, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Topics covered will include:

demography
health transitions and social changes
ageing and the Development Agenda
Global institutions and politics
social policies for ageing societies
human rights in an ageing world

This module will draw on the multi-disciplinary strengths of King's College and across the Department of Political Economy to provide important perspectives on population ageing and the growing numbers of older people around the world.

On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of demographic processes and how these vary across the world.
2. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of population ageing and its effects on family support systems, living arrangements and intergenerational relationships.
3. Critically evaluate the key social, political and economic implications of changing demographic processes on contemporary societies across the world.
4. Analyse the policy and practice implications of ageing societies.
5. Demonstrate a critical awareness of global institutions and their impact on the lives of older people.

Teaching staff: Dr Barbara Prainsack

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/people/academic/Dr-Barbara-Prainsack.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM609
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 15
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
Assessment:  coursework 
1 x 500 word proposal (formative)
1 x 3,000 word essay (100%)

This module is designed to familiarise students with core social science perspectives on genomics, as well as with key contributions from the ELSA (ethical, legal, and social aspects of genomics) literature. It will cover research-related, clinical, political, social, economic, and ethical dimensions of genomics. Specifically, the module aims to:

• Critically explore key contested social science perspectives on research-related, clinical, regulatory, social, economic, and economic dimensions of genomics;
• Critically illuminate the complex nature of multidisciplinary research on medicine, bioscience and society;
• Equip students with the analytic and conceptual skills necessary for a critical and productive engagement with literature in both the life sciences and the social sciences at the interface of genomics and society.

Module code: tbc
Credit level: 7

Half-module

Taught by: Professor Rosamund Scott

This module addresses the law relating to assisted reproduction and the embryo, primarily in England & Wales. You explore the law on assisted reproduction and surrogacy and consider legitimate uses of the embryo beyond the reproductive sphere, studying embryo research / stem cell research / therapeutic cloning. These themes are united by the fact that the latter activities may stem from the embryos created but not used in medically assisted reprodution. You also consider some key underlying ethical issues.

Module code: tbc
Credit level: 7

Half-module

Taught by: Professor Rosamund Scott

This module covers aspects of the law relating to reproduction in England and Wales and in selected other jurisdictions, and some key ethical issues underlying the law. You consider the scope of the legal interest in having a child, or in avoiding reproduction or in deciding about the kind of child one may have. You explore the law relating to abortion, prenatal diagnosis, wrongful birth, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, wrongful life, wrongful conception and the sterilisation of someone who is mentally disabled.

Teaching staff: Professor John Abraham
Module code: 7SSHM612
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 7
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
Assessment:  coursework;  presentation/s; 
1 x formative presentation
1 x 3,500 word essay (100%)

The module will introduce students to an authoritative and comprehensive analysis of the interaction between pharmaceuticals and society from a range of social science perspectives, including anthropology, bioethics, economics, history, politics and sociology. Specifically, the module aims to:

• Evaluate key theoretical approaches to the nature of pharmaceutical development, regulation, marketing and consumption
• Explore the complex nature and interaction of social science and techno-scientific factors explaining the role of pharmaceuticals in society
• Provide an understanding of the types of evidence that need to be brought to bear on risk-benefit decisions about pharmaceuticals across many institutional contexts and especially the role of social science in illuminating the nature of that evidence
• Raise awareness of the international nature of the pharmaceutical-society interaction
• Provide the analytical tools for systematic discussion of the global dimensions of health needs and pharmaceutical provision

Teaching staff: Professor Nikolas Rose

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/people/academic/Professor-Nikolas-Rose.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM608
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 15
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
1 x 2 hour exam (50%)
1 x 3,00 word essay (50%)




• This module examines the social organisation of psychiatry as an apparatus for defining and regulating ‘madness’ - and sanity.
• We consider contemporary western psychiatric conceptions of mental illness and their critics, and use historical investigations to explore the complex links between psychiatric theories and practices and the emergence of ‘modern’ societies.
• We consider the birth of the asylum system in the nineteenth century and its relation to the development of modern, urban and industrial forms of life and cultural norms of conduct.
• We explore ‘colonial’ psychiatry, and its role in the management of conduct in the colonies. We examine the transformation of the psychiatric system in the first half of the twentieth century, with the discovery of ‘the neuroses’ and a ‘psychiatrisation of everyday life’.
• We analyse further major changes in psychiatry over the last twenty five years: the moves towards ‘community psychiatry’ and the management of risk; the rise of biological explanations and treatments of mental disorder; the transnational spread of psychiatric medications such as tranquillisers and antidepressants.
• We explore the globalization of psychiatry, considering both the rise of ‘transcultural’ psychiatry, and the recent scholarship on the spread of ‘western’ categories and practices to other societies and cultures.
• Throughout the module, our focus will be on the relations of knowledge, power and expertise in psychiatry in different cultures, upon the ways in which psychiatry has operated as a means of social regulation, and upon the role of psychiatry in the cultural construction of normality and abnormality.

Teaching staff: Dr Karen Lowton

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/geront/people/academic/lowton.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM506
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 15
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
Assessment:  coursework 
1 x 3000 word essay (100%)

This module aims to provide students with a critical understanding of the ethical approaches and governance of health and social science research, as applied to sensitive issues and vulnerable populations. The module will explore contrasting responses from different interest groups and theoretical standpoints, including the social and behavioural sciences, and public and social policy where appropriate. NB: The module will not cover issues relating to basic clinical research.

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to demonstrate a critical understanding of:
1. The fundamental ethical considerations and legal frameworks underpinning health and social science research.
2. The ethical considerations arising throughout the research process: from initial project concept to research governance and dissemination.
3. Consent, capability and autonomy in research participation.
4. The general principles and practices underpinning the interests and protection of vulnerable research participants, including confidentiality and anonymity.
5. The dilemmas and required responses to ‘wearing two hats’ of clinician and researcher.
6. Ethical and practical issues relating to the safety of researchers

Indicative Reading

Beauchamp TL, Childress JF. (2001) Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 5th edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Iphofen R. (2009) Ethical decision making in social research: a practical guide. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Mauthner M, Birch M, Jessop J, Miller T (eds) (2002) Ethics in Qualitative Research. London, Sage

Teaching staff: Dr Alex Faulkner
Module code: 7SSAM134
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Assessment:  coursework;  presentation/s; 
1 x formative seminar presentation
1 x 5000 word essay (100% if overall mark)

This module will enable students to understand key issues in science policy from social science and science and technology (STS) perspectives.  The module explores a series of core themes of science policy and politics, such as agenda setting and the role of professional expertise in science policy.  It also examines some of the most important interfaces between science policy and political cultures; religion, economic innovation, law, research ethics and public engagement, and it pays special attention to topical issues in current science policy making.

Teaching staff: Dr Jahnavi Phalkey
Module code: 7YYI0015
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20 credits
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: 10 x 2-hour weekly seminars
Assessment:  coursework 
1 x 4,000 word essay and class participation

This course is aimed at thinking broadly about the experiences and meanings of science and technology for the global population during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will focus on key themes in twentieth century global history: public health, race, global trade, decolonisation, modernisation, the nuclear age, green revolution and population control. We want to understand the normative and moral aspects of the debates and arguments around the "civilizing mission" under European colonialism through "modernization" during the Cold War under the global leadership of the United States and the Soviet Union, and how this transition of world politics was played out globally with respect to science and technology. We will see that interactions between cultures have often been negotiated through practices concerning the control and regulation of territories and populations. The ideas around civilisation and progress that helped legitimate these practices under colonial rule, continued through the period after World War II, providing the foundations for efforts to develop and modernise the emerging decolonised world. Through close attention to ideas and processes (more than on details of specific cases), we will examine the diversity of the historical actors and the context of their interactions.

Teaching staff: Dr Stuart Hogarth

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/people/academic/hogarth.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM610
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 15
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
Assessment:  coursework 
1 x 500 word formative essay
1 x 3,500 word summative essay (100%)

This module enables students to understand social science perspectives on the contemporary bioeconomy. Spanning both industrialised nations and the emerging economies of Asia Pacific, it will explore how the biomedical research enterprise is being reshaped by governments and corporations as they search for competitive advantage in an increasingly global bioeconomy.

The module is interdisciplinary drawing inter alia on science and technology studies, socio-legal studies and political economy. Topics covered will include: the emergence of the idea of a knowledge-based economy, and its function as part of the neoliberal state project (the shift from government to governance); the concept of promissory science and the promotion of biotechnology as a ‘frontier technology’; the formation of public policy through processes of multi-level governance at the local, national and transnational levels; the intersection between public policy and commercial strategy, and the changing relationships between governments, corporations and academic scientists; the globalisation of academic research and corporate R&D; the role of regulation as a both a response to and a shaper of biotechnologies; the importance of intellectual property rights in the bioeconomy, the legalisation of patents on novel life-based technologies and the globalisation of the IP regime favoured by Western pharmaceutical companies through the TRIPS agreement; and the public health consequences of focusing biomedical R&D on emergent biotechnologies

Teaching staff: Dr Carlo Caduff

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/people/academic/Dr-Carlo-Caduff.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM613
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 15
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
Assessment:  coursework 
2 X 500 word reading responses (formative)
1 x 500 word proposal (10%)
1 x 2,500 word essay (90%)

We seem to live in a world of disasters and emergencies, with one crisis piling on another. In this module we explore the contemporary politics of disasters and emergencies and we examine how critical events garner attention and galvanize social and political action. Rather than take disasters and emergencies as presumably self-evident events for granted, we explore disasters and emergencies as a social imaginary, and that is to say, as a particular way of perceiving the world. This perception is now at the heart of an expanding industry of emergency management and disaster relief. In this module we analyze this global industry, using anthropological, sociological, and historical approaches. How have disasters and emergencies contributed to the rethinking and reshaping of what political action means today? How has the temporality of emergency affected the perception of social and political problems?

Aims
 To describe the key actors and institutions as well as discourses and practices that seek to address contemporary health crises.

 To introduce students to the key concepts and debates in anthropological, sociological, and historical studies of disasters and emergencies.

 To give students the abilities to analyze emergency relief and disaster prevention from a critical point of view.

 To provide students with an understanding of the relationship between social, cultural, political, and economic factors that shape the perception of disasters and emergencies.

 To provide students with the skills to critically evaluate humanitarian interventions and to identify the role of key stakeholders in shaping them.

Teaching staff: Dr. Hanna Kienzler
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/people/academic/Dr-Hanna-Kienzler.aspx

Dr. Orkideh Behrouzan
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/sshm/people/academic/Dr-Orkideh-Behrouzan.aspx
Module code: 7SSHM611
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 15
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Teaching pattern: Lectures
Assessment:  coursework 
1 x 1,500 word essay (40%)
1 x 2,000 word essay (60%)

This module examines the phenomenon of war related violence, destruction, distress, and trauma-related health problems, health-seeking and healing practices. We will follow and discuss the debates of researchers who have tried to determine and verify the effects of violent conflict on the mental health of those affected by focusing on concepts like war trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social suffering, and idioms of distress. We will problematize conventional and universal understandings of trauma, and disease-centered approaches to traumatic experience and health interventions.

Class sessions will involve lectures, guest lectures, student presentations, discussions, film screenings, and review activities. To involve students in their own learning, make seminar topics come alive, to deepen students’ knowledge of a topic, and to develop particular skills, questions which stimulate critical thinking, annotated suggestions for further readings, and lists of related websites will be provided.

Aims
• To introduce students to key concepts and debates around war trauma and relevant interventions.
• To approach mental health and wars from an interdisciplinary angle by reviewing the publications of work in the fields of medicine, public health, psychiatry, anthropology, sociology, history and philosophy.
• To develop an understanding of theories of and approaches related to the key concepts related to war, mental health and healing.
• To synthesise, compare, and critically discuss key concepts, academic debates, research approaches and relevant ethnographic studies.