Health Sciences

In this course, students examine the concept of health, discuss health promotion and disease prevention, and delve into the world of understanding and changing lifestyle behaviors. Students analyze how psychological factors, environments, policies, culture and even corporations shape human behaviors. These insights allow students to design powerful lifestyle interventions. Students gain foundational knowledge and skills necessary for understanding and improving the lifestyle behaviors of populations.

This course provides an overview of occupational health and safety conditions worldwide. The course addresses how to enhance working conditions and prevent accidents and injuries through the implementation of ILO training programs practiced globally. The course also introduces key Japanese concepts such as kaizen and 5S, allowing students to engage with these training approaches while developing practical skills for planning and implementing workplace improvements applicable to future work environments.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The program focuses on the protection of healthcare in the European Union and most notably covers the following topics:

• the major constitutional and political issues underlying this subject;
• the competences of the EU in the field of healthcare and the increasing role of the One Health approach in the EU;
• healthcare as an economic freedom;
• healthcare as a fundamental right;
• healthcare as a sectoral policy of the European Union: governance, institutional actors and regulatory framework;
• the case law of the Court of Justice on health services and access to cross-border healthcare; the pharmaceutical and medical devices market;
• the digitization of healthcare systems (e.g., e-Health, m-Health, Artificial Intelligence, and European Health Data Space);
• preparedness and response planning in the event of serious cross-border health threats: the Union’s response to COVID-19.

At the end of the course unit, students: possess an in-depth knowledge about the supranational legal mechanisms concerning health, with an emphasis on patient mobility and the cooperation between Member States to face transboundary health crises; can figure out (and solve) problems affecting the transboundary development of health policies at the European level, especially the provision of health services, and are capable to assess the abovementioned mechanisms in the framework of the applicable international legal regime, in particular the World Health Organization.

Students are required to have attended the Heart and Lung Disease course and to have achieved an adequate level of proficiency in the subject. At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Describe in depth the indications for surgical intervention, the main surgical techniques, and the expected outcomes in the correction of congenital and acquired heart defects in both pediatric and adult patients.
- Apply the theoretical knowledge to real or simulated clinical cases, identifying the most appropriate surgical approach based on the pathology and clinical context.
- Critically evaluate the indications, risks, and benefits of different surgical options, developing sound clinical judgement in a multidisciplinary setting.
- Communicate clearly with peers and instructors, using appropriate terminology to discuss procedures, risks, and outcomes related to cardiothoracic surgery.
- Demonstrate the ability to identify reliable sources and begin developing an independent learning approach to stay informed about advances in cardiothoracic surgical techniques and guidelines.

Prerequisites: The student must be confident with the knowledge regarding the following topics: human anatomy, physiology, and general mechanisms of diseases. 

At the end of the course, the student will be able to take the patient history, perform the physical examination, formulate the diagnostic hypotheses and set up an appropriate diagnostic-therapeutic procedure for patients suffering from thoracic diseases, endocrine glands, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, anus, liver, pancreas, spleen, abdomen, peritoneum, skin, soft parts and breast, as reported in the program in full. 

Course topics include: Introduction to surgery (surgical risk, complications); Shock (classification, management principles); Infections of surgical interest; Benign and malignant diseases of the esophagus (including principles of surgical therapy); Benign and malignant diseases of the stomach (including principles of surgical therapy); Benign and malignant diseases of the small intestine (including principles of surgical therapy); Benign and malignant colorectal diseases (including principles of surgical therapy); Proctology (including principles of surgical therapy); Benign and malignant diseases of the liver and biliary tract (including principles of surgical therapy); Benign and malignant diseases of the pancreas (including principles of surgical therapy); Hernias of the abdominal wall and incisional hernia (including principles of surgical therapy); Diseases of the diaphragm (including principles of surgical therapy); Skin cancers (including principles of surgical therapy); Benign and malignant breast diseases (including principles of surgical therapy); Soft tissue tumors (including principles of surgical therapy); Tumors of the peritoneum (including principles of surgical therapy); Endocrine surgery (including principles of surgical therapy); Diseases of the mediastinum (including principles of surgical therapy); Lung tumors (including principles of surgical therapy); Acute abdomen (general framework, etiology, management principles); Diseases of the spleen (benign and malignant); Traumatology (general framework, management principles); Transplantation; Bariatric surgery; Vascular surgery; Critical care medicine; Plastic and reconstructive surgery.

Prerequisites: Fundamentals of anatomy and physiopathology. 

The course provides students with a solid knowledge and understanding of the fundamental principles of plastic and reconstructive surgery, with a focus on the management of soft tissue injuries and defects following oncologic resection. Basic concepts related to burn treatment are also introduced. Through theoretical lectures and clinical case discussions, students develop the ability to apply their knowledge in selecting appropriate reconstructive strategies, including skin grafts, local and regional flaps, muscular flaps, and microsurgical techniques. They are also expected to demonstrate independent judgment in evaluating the most effective approaches based on specific clinical contexts.

The course also supports the development of communication skills, as students are encouraged to actively participate in case discussions, articulating their reasoning clearly and effectively. Finally, the course promotes learning skills through an integrated approach that highlights the close relationship between the restoration of function and the aesthetic outcome of reconstructive surgery, with attention to the patient’s physical and emotional recovery.

The course is to understand how evolutionary principles can help us to better explain health and disease.  Why do we get sick? Why are pregnancies complicated? Why do we grow old? Why do infectious diseases have a disproportionate effect in men and women? These fascinating questions are the core of evolutionary medicine. Through case studies, students explore contemporary issues in health and disease –ones that we confront on a regular basis– and ask how evolutionary concepts –e.g., life history theory, cooperation and conflict, constraints and trade-offs, coevolution– help us to understand, mitigate, or combat those issues. 

This course will help students to 1. Understand the origin, development, clinical application and dominant diseases of acupuncture and moxibustion; 2. Be familiar with the experimental progress and scientific research of acupuncture and moxibustion in the treatment of pain, mental disorders, reproductive metabolic diseases, degenerative diseases, bone and joint diseases, etc.

This course introduces students to two ways of making sense of public health. The first is by exploring some of the key sites that are central to the making of public health. The second is through acknowledging that whilst public health (and its sidekick, epidemiology, the study of health across populations) sounds like it would be about actually existing people, it is often about people at the aggregate. In other words, statistics. This course takes a different approach: students study the observable behavior and attitudes of actually existing people—whether in the present or the past. This course introduces students to some key research methodologies in the social sciences and humanities-doing fieldwork, using archives, and unlocking the mysteries of university libraries in order to enable students to understand and master key concepts in the anthropology, history, and social science of life, death, and illness as part of the practice of medicine; to familiarize students provide students with key debates in the anthropology, history, and social science of life, death, and illness; to familiarize students with how medical understandings of life, death, and illness have changed over time; to familiarize students with how medical practice and understanding of life, death, and illness differ across cultures.

This course explores gender, sex, and sexuality in a cross-disciplinary environment that promotes a dialogue between both students and academics from different faculties. Teaching sessions comprise combinations of lectures and seminars that juxtapose different approaches to related subtopics, for example by pairing a science-based lecture with a seminar on the representation of gender or sexuality in the arts. These sessions are framed by reflective exercises aimed at identifying areas of overlap as well as gaps and contradictions within these approaches.