SIU first-year law, medical school students collaborate on professional responsibility
by Pete Rosenbery
More than 250 Southern Illinois University first-year professional students confronted and discussed current ethical legal and medical issues together at the SIU Simmons Law School in Carbondale.
The students from the law school and SIU School of Medicine were part of the 28th annual Interdisciplinary Professional Responsibility Day, one of the university’s largest, longstanding interdisciplinary events, in the Lesar Law Building on Sept. 5. Participants included 134 first-year law students, 80 first-year medical students and 40 physician assistant students.
“Relying on the shared wisdom and expertise of faculty and practitioners in both disciplines who serve as small group facilitators, Interdisciplinary Professionalism Day reinforces the importance of collaboration, cooperation and respect,” said Hannah Brenner Johnson, dean of the SIU Simmons Law School. “Working together, students grapple with real-world scenarios that are emblematic of those they will encounter in their careers as doctors and lawyers. By situating this event at the very beginning of students’ course of study, it sets the expectation that ethics and a commitment to professionalism should serve as cornerstones of their academic and professional lives.”
The students were divided into 18 groups, each with a mix of law students, medical students and physician assistant students to discuss and analyze a different current legal topic with the assistance of both legal and medical facilitators, said Dr. James Lynch, an education associate professor and first-year doctoring director.
“The aim of the experience is to get the students to consider these scenarios from different viewpoints and discussing the various avenues to approach the problems,” Lynch said. “We want students to see how other professions think, broadening their own approach to problem solving.”
Some of the topics included informed consent, the use of artificial intelligence in decision-making, digital privacy, vaccine exemptions, complying with federal laws such as the Americans with Disability Act, abortion-related scenarios, physician-assisted suicide, Medicaid research, and potential conflicts between protected health information and reporting a patient’s immigration status. This year’s facilitators included 15 physicians, eight medical faculty and staff, five physician assistants, 16 law school faculty and staff, four local attorneys and a judge.
The Simmons Law School and School of Medicine each require the program, and the event is part of the law school’s first-year Professionalism and the Law class. Over the years, cases have involved bioethics, challenging social dilemmas, and life-and-death decision-making. Students who are in the first year of the four-year M.D. degree attend classes on the Carbondale campus where they concentrate on the basic sciences.
