MHS5106 · Ethics of mental health care

Overview

This unit will cover the essential components of ethical practice in clinical mental health settings, and is recognised by The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) as part of an accredited formal education course that includes an elective ethics component. This unit teaches the ethical underpinning of clinical mental health practice, beginning with foundational ethical theories and frameworks, and covering the common clinical challenges of privacy and confidentiality, capacity and informed consent, coercive treatment, boundary issues and conflicts of interest, and the exercise of power. Special topics about professional relationship with industry, end-of-life decisions, codes of ethics and child protection are also covered. This unit will be relevant to any person working in a clinical mental health setting or with people experiencing mental illness, including psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, nurses, lived experience workers, general practitioners, and those working in general hospital settings, especially emergency departments and palliative care units.

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Apply relevant ethical theories and frameworks to the clinical mental health practice.
2. Discuss the special ethical issues relating to the relationship between psychiatrists and patients in clinical mental health practice.
3. Discuss the special ethical issues relating to the relationship between psychiatrists and society.
4. Critically evaluate the significance and limitations of professional ethical codes and other codified guidance in relation to clinical mental health practice.
5. Distinguish and analyse the underlying ethical assumptions and tensions in everyday clinical mental health practice.
6. Construct a systematic approach to working through ethical challenges in clinical mental health practice.

Workload

12 hours per week - 2 hours of lectures, 2 hours of directed online student learning activities, plus 8 hours of self-directed study per week. Participation in a half-day interactive workshop experience on campus to demonstrate that application of theory to practice is mandated.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.