Health Sciences

The International Internship course develops vital business skills employers are actively seeking in job candidates. This course is comprised of two parts: an internship, and a hybrid academic seminar. Students are placed in an internship within a sector related to their professional ambitions. The hybrid academic seminar, conducted both online and in-person, analyzes and evaluates the workplace culture and the daily working environment students experience. The course is divided into eight career readiness competency modules as set out by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which guide the course’s learning objectives. During the academic seminar, students reflect weekly on their internship experience within the context of their host culture by comparing and contrasting their experiences with their global internship placement with that of their home culture. Students reflect on their experiences in their internship, the role they have played in the evolution of their experience in their internship placement, and the experiences of their peers in their internship placements. Students develop a greater awareness of their strengths relative to the career readiness competencies, the subtleties and complexities of integrating into a cross-cultural work environment, and how to build and maintain a career search portfolio.

In this course students acquire knowledge about: Public Health law in international, European, and domestic settings; the nature of law, and broad legal principles behind the law's contribution to public health; the way that different types of procedures are used to regulate the public health (e.g. medical committees and officials, criminal law, privacy, public interest arguments, etc.); other normative considerations relating to framing public health responses; how public health responses operate. The course also trains students to: read and understand legal documents (particularly treaties and European legislation, and guidance documents and codes of practice); understand how legal and ethical arguments are constructed at different points in relation to public health, particularly how human rights decisions are made at the European Court of Human Rights; apply these insights to “live” public health issues. Students are also trained to: consider the difference between life science, medical, political, legal and ethical judgments; consider how each type of judgment is constructed; consider how different judgments are given authority and enforced in society. Finally, through this course students are able to: construct effective, logical, and evidenced arguments to influence political decision-makers; consider how far discussion can be useful in the creation of normative arguments and responses; develop effective skills in presenting arguments.

This course examines disturbed, strange, unadjusted, and abnormal behavior. Students review prevalent clinical case studies and the resulting research on topics such as anxiety disorders, eating disorders, addictions, mood disorders, and psychotic disorders. Questions that are repeatedly discussed include: What does the clinical picture look like? What are the diagnostic criteria? When does normal become abnormal? How often does this disorder arise? How does such a disorder develop? What can be done about it? The goal of these questions is to understand why one person develops the disorder while another does not, how scientific research can reveal the causes of disorders, and insight into the mechanisms that maintain the disorder. Students become familiar with various forms of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy as well as theories on etiology, empirical findings that support or contradict the theory, customary treatments, and the effectiveness of those therapies.

This course serves as an introduction to core concepts in Global Health. Through a multidisciplinary approach students learn about the way in which the health of the individual is shaped by socio-political forces. Each week students evaluate a major cause of ill health in developed and developing countries and the role of key actors that influence health. Topics covered include access and availability of healthcare, inequality, poverty, ethics, aid, and the key actors in global health.

The course highlights adolescent health, family planning, pregnancy and childbirth, abortion, sexual identity, sexual coercion and violence, and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS. Perspectives of gender, poverty, sustainability and rights serve as general themes. The topics discussed include evidence-based strategies and interventions related to each theme. The course covers socio-cultural differences through discussions of global challenges such as cervical cancer, female genital mutilation, trafficking and sexual violence in relation to existing theories and current research results. Reflections and discussions of ethical issues and approaches in relation to abortion, genital mutilation, sexual identities and violence take place through participation in different values exercises. The development of international programs and policies, and the discourse used within them, are highlighted. Global as well as regional/local policy documents on sustainability and rights perspectives are studied and discussed.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course addresses recent topics in the field of Global Health. Specific topics critical assessment of recent health care reforms in LMICs; efforts to extend coverage of health care and improve universal coverage; issues in financing schemes of health care in LMIC; definition of healthcare policy priorities and the assessment of economic burden of disease in LMICs; the role of NGOs and multilateral institutions; key policy interventions on prevention, workforce planning, and capacity building. The course examines global health issues from the standpoint of health policy and systems. It aims to provide an overview of key global health policies and an introduction to the main challenges, issues, and solutions in global health. The course covers the following topics: global health trends and estimates of health indicators; global health policy landscape; health systems approaches to global health challenges; global governance and health; global health financing architecture; financing health systems and universal health coverage; and evidence for global health policies. The course includes lectures, case studies, group discussions and presentations.

Prerequisite: Pharmacology 1. This course focuses on the pharmacology of cardiovascular, renal, chemotherapeutic, and endocrine systems.

Regional Anatomy deals with the position, and relationship of the structures of several systems located in a particular region of the body. In this basic medical course students dissect a cadaver, layer by layer and observe the position, adjacent relations of different organs and structures.

This course is to enhance the health care awareness of college students, to acquire certain health knowledge and first aid operation skills, to enhance the self-consciousness of maintaining their own health, to consciously choose healthy behavior and life style, and to improve the health of themselves and others and the ability to prevent diseases, so as to promote physical and mental health, improve health quality.