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Teaching Health Law: Teaching Law and Medicine on the Interdisciplinary Cutting Edge: Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Susan B. Apel
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Extract

Interdisciplinary teaching can be a hard sell to the legal academic community. Over almost three decades, I have spoken at conferences on a variety of subjects. When I have presented on this particular topic, however, I have drawn my most meager crowds. Is it because we think interdisciplinary pedagogy is a bad idea, that we are ill-equipped, or that it is generally too difficult to do successfully? After a dozen years of creating and teaching an interdisciplinary course in law and medicine, I confess that it is now my other, law-only courses that I feel I have to justify. Why is an interdisciplinary approach to teaching law the exception rather than the rule?

My path to creating an interdisciplinary course in law and medicine (MedLaw) began indirectly and with impatience at my own teaching of family law. I had been a professor of family law for decades, and I had developed a sophisticated set of simulations that asked students to negotiate a settlement in a marital dissolution case.

Type
JLME Column
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , Summer 2010 , pp. 420 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2010

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References

As one of my students stated in her course evaluation, “Because law touches every area of life, it's a shame it isn't taught entirely in an interdisciplinary manner.” Kortlandt, L., Student, Vermont Law School, Class of 2010.Google Scholar
The title of the course is “Medical-Legal Issues: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Our Changing Concepts of Reproduction and the Family.” We have abbreviated it to MedLaw.Google Scholar
I remain grateful for this opportunity given to me by then Academic Dean Linda O. Smiddy.Google Scholar
See Daar, J. F., Reproductive Technologies and the Law (Newark: LexisNexis/Matthew Bender, 2006) and Kindregan, C. with McBrien, M. and Snyder, S., Assisted Reproductive Technologies: A Lawyer's Guide to the Emerging Law and Science, 2006 and 2009 Supplement (Chicago: American Bar Association Section of Family Law, 2006).Google Scholar
Emily Greenberger, , Student, Dartmouth Medical School.Google Scholar
Davis v. Davis, 842 S.W.2d 588 (Tenn.1992).Google Scholar
Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is a means of genetic screening. See <http://www.mhresearchfoundation.org/FISH_testing.org> (last visited May 13, 2010).+(last+visited+May+13,+2010).>Google Scholar
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is a technique used in conjunction with in vitro fertilization (IVF) to test embryos for specific genetic disorders prior to their transfer tothe uterus. See <http://www.asrm.org/Patients/FactSheets/genetic_screening.pdf> (last visited May 13,2010).+(last+visited+May+13,2010).>Google Scholar
Endres v. Endres, 968 A.2d.336 (Vt. 2008).Google Scholar
A video file of the presentation is available from the author, and is also available on YouTube under ‘Getting’ Outta Trouble: Plan B,” available at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp5L5kEQm0c> (last visited May 13, 2010.)+(last+visited+May+13,+2010.)>Google Scholar
Lochhead, J., Student, Vermont Law School, Class of 2011.Google Scholar
“MedLaw: at the Intersection of Law and Medicine,” posted on the VLS web site in fall 2009, available at http://www.vermontlaw.edu/News_and_Events/News/Medlaw_At_the_Intersection_of_Law_and_Medicine.htm (last visited May 12, 2010).Google Scholar