Syllabus
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES
THE
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL BRANCH
GALVESTON, TEXAS
COURSE NUMBER: INTD 6358
COURSE TITLE: Suffering: Cultural and Spiritual Perspectives
PLACEMENT IN
CURRICULUM: Interdisciplinary Research Elective
CREDIT ALLOCATION: 3 credits
FACULTY: Kay Sandor, Ph.D., RN, and Rodger Marion, Ph.D. Plus, special guest, Harold Vanderpool, Ph.D., Th.M.
PREREQUISITES: Admission to Nursing PhD program, GSBS Graduate program, any UT graduate program, or consent of instructor.
Welcome to the Course
Hello! The course begins on Monday, August 31, 2009. We have numbered the weeks in the Schedule. Please use the week of August 31 as Week 1 of the course. When you read this page, send an email to Rodger Marion (rmarion@utmb.edu) and Kay Sandor (ksandor@utmb.edu). That way your instructors will know you are here. There is an email feature found in the Communication menu item on the left. The email address for you used by this course is the same one you entered into the TIS. It is best to use one email address for this course, so if you prefer to use a different one than the one here and in the TIS, you need to change that preference in the TIS.
Then, read the information below. The course consists of four assignments. We have identified several things that you need to do first, in addition to everything you have already done up to this point.
- You need to become familiar with the UT System Digital Library if you have not done so in an earlier class. The Digital Library gives you access to various databases that are useful for this course. You also will have access to your home UT campus online library resources if you are taking another course from that campus. We can also get you access to the UTMB on-line library resources but it is a painful process and we recommend avoiding it if possible. If you discover that your access is limited; not to worry. There are many sources of information, and no matter where you are, you can get the information you need to be successful in the course. Note: this link will open in a second window, as will subsequent links. The second window can sometimes hide behind the first window. So if something appears not to work, go look for the second window behind the first.
- Review how to use the course discussion. There is a link in the menu on the left. Be sure you know how to post a comment, reply to a comment, and attach a file using the discussions.
- We require you to use the Submit Your Writing feature of Smarthinking for your literature review paper in Assignment 3. Please familiarize yourself with the Smarthinking resource. You may wish to use this feature for your other writing assignments as well. See link in the menu on the left.
- One of the useful features of the course is a web page (Locate the Send Email link under the Communication menu item on left) that lists all the students and faculty in the course with their emails. We find that students like to learn about each other and to be able to be in touch on occasion.
- Oh yes, there are video clips that are part of the course. The video clips will be encoded using Flash, so please check that you have the latest version installed.
- Finally, please be sure that your computer meets all the technical specifications outlined by the TeleCampus at the Getting Started pages. This will enable you to have a "technical glitch" free semester.
TWO OPTIONS:
The information below will orient you to the big aspects of the course. Please read all of these sections now. When you are done, you will have two options about how to continue. - If you are in a hurry, leap into the first part of the course, titled Assignment 1 (See menu on the left).
- If you are a more deliberate person, then continue to read and review all the sections of the course: Schedule, Faculty, Live Seminar, Live Chat, Discussions, and all the assignments. Then, when you have a frim grasp on the course, leap into Assignment 1.
In either case, we welcome you to the course.
NAVIGATING THE COURSE: Now that you have gained access to the course on the UT TeleCampus, practice with the navigation frames so that you can become comfortable with the logistics of the course and location of its components. Make sure that you review this syllabus carefully as soon as possible so that you can ask for clarification of anything you don't understand. The TeleCampus provides a number of help options through UTTC Technical Support (See more on technical support at the end of this section). Please take advantage of these options when you run into technical difficulties. Occasionally when you access a link within the course that is designed to provide you information for research, study, or activities to complete outside the content contained directly within the course, a new browser window will open on your screen. When you have completed the task or studied the information accessed from the link, return to the course by closing that browser window. You may also leave the second window open, but then remember that subsequent links may open pages in that hidden window. You will need to switch to the second window that is behind your main browser window.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Announcements from the instructors will be posted in the Announcements area (Link in the menu on
the left). It is your responsibility to note and act on any of those announcements.
DISCUSSIONS: Participation in discussions for portions of several of the assignments is required and your performance is evaluated. You may access the Discussion Board in the Communications menu on the left navigation frame.
GRADE BOOK: The course has four assignments where you earn points. Your overall grade in the course is based on these four activities only. There are no tests. Your scores on these activities will be shown in the Grade Book. If you have questions about your scores at any time please email your instructors.
UNIVERSITY POLICIES: You may have need to know about some of the policies and procedures followed by the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. There are three sources of further information.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This interdisciplinary research elective will investigate the phenomena of human suffering: culturally, personally, and within health care settings. It will explore how suffering has been and can be addressed and alleviated by caregivers and enable students to discover a promising area of research. Systematic formal evaluation of students’ achievement of course goals will be conducted.
COURSE OBJECTIVES: At the completion of the course, student will have had the
opportunity to:
- Differentiate the many dimensions of suffering in humans.
- Identify one’s personal experience with suffering and methods used to deal with it.
- Recognize how suffering is related to illness and the degree to which it is dealt with in healthcare settings.
- Critically analyze healing self-care practices that may be used to deal with suffering.
- Appraise the use of selected healing self-care practices for one's personal life.
- Compile a historical overview of the perception and role of suffering in different cultures and religious traditions.
- Summarize ways professional caregivers respond to the suffering of patients.
- Identify research and clinical investigations that examine how a patient's view of suffering can affect illness, recovery, and wellness.
TOPICAL OUTLINE:
- Introduction to the Historical and Cultural Views of Suffering
- Mapping Suffering
- Dimensions of Suffering
- Personal Encounters with Suffering
- Encounters with the Suffering of Others (Disease, Death, War)
- Considering Theodicy
- When Bad Things Happen to Good People
- Ways of Mitigating or Resolving Suffering
- Finding Meaning: Hope in the Midst of Suffering
- The Language and Vision of Suffering: Poems, Prayers, Music, and Film
TEACHING STRATEGIES: Seminar discussion, didactic presentations, self-critique, experiential exercises, observation and analysis, written papers. Emphasis is placed on student participation in the course and the students’ self-assessments and self-identified, unique learning needs.
EVALUATION METHODS:
- Assignment 1 - 100 points
- Assignment 2 - 100 points
- Assignment 3 - 200 points
- Assignment 4 - 100 points
- Total possible points - 500 points
Grades are based on the following:
- A - 100% to 90% of possible points
- B - 89% to 80% of possible points
- C - 79% to 70% of possible points
- F - 69% or less of possible points
REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS:
- Conrad, J. (2000). Heart of Darkness. New York: Penguin Books. (A free online version of this is available. See Assignment 3)
- Fenelon, Fania. (1977) Playing for Time. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. (This book is optional to watching the movie of the same name. See Assignment 3).
- Frankel, V. (1959). Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.
- Kushner, H. S. (1981). When Bad Things Happen to Good People. New York: Avon Books.
These books are commonly available at the library or from on-line vendors (Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, etc.)
ONLINE TEXTS USED:
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
- Bowker, J. W. (1997). World Religions: The Great Faiths Explored and Explained. New York: DK Adult Publishers. (This is not used directly in an assignment, but it is a good resource for world religions).
- Cassel. R. K. (1982). The nature of suffering and the goals of medicine. New England Journal of Medicine, 309 (18), 639-645.
- Dickey, J. (1992). The scarred girl. In The Whole Motion: Collected poems 1945-1992. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, pp. 153-154.
- Green, R. M. (1987). Theodicy. The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Vol. 14, pp. 430-441.
- Jarrell, R. (2003) The death of the ball turret gunner. In The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, p. 540. http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/707.html (free on the web).
- Lesho, E. P. (2003). When the spirit hurts: An approach to the suffering patient. Archives of Internal Medicine, 163, 2429-2432.
- Lewis, C. S. (2001). A Grief Observed. San Francisco: Harper.
Some of these are supplemental and some we will use in class. We will ensure that you have access via a variety of channels to all materials that you really need.
FINE PRINT:
- Assignments: Each assignment has a written product that is graded. Unsatisfactory work can be redone outside of class for a maximum of 10% less than the original credit.
- Late Assignments: Late assignments will be reduced 10% unless you missed class due to illness or other real emergency. Let us know if you are unable to complete an assignment on time before of the due date and we can arrange for an extension with no point penalty. Some assignments have several parts and only the part that was late is affected by the reduction.
- Question Asking: You are encouraged to ask questions on any area of research at any time. Consider your instructors as resources and guides to your study. We are available at all times and are truly interested in helping you to successfully complete this course. Please ask questions.
- Special Considerations: Should a student's overall course performance drop below the standard expected of graduate work, the student may be allowed to redo assignments in order to improve his/her grade. Redone assignments are worth a maximum of 90% of the original point values. Students who want to take advantage of this consideration need to see the instructor. All alternative work will be done outside of class at the instructor's convenience. It is the goal of this course that all students be allowed the maximum opportunity to successfully complete the course.
- Grading Philosophy: For all assignments, a minimally correct answer is worth 10% less than the maximum of the possible points. Maximum points are reserved for answers that exceed the minimum and approach excellence.
ACADEMIC PROGRESS:
Information regarding the student's academic progress in this course will be shared with their academic adviser and/or department chair. Students making unsatisfactory progress may be referred to the Office of Student Affairs for assistance.
UNIVERSITY STATEMENT ON EQUALITY, TOLERANCE AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION:
Please indicate by the end of the second week of the course if you will need accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (Public Law 101-336). If the need for ADA accommodations should arise during the semester you will need to make your request known to the ADA Coordinator in the Office of Student Affairs.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:
Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, cheating, plagiarism, collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for another person, and any act designed to give unfair advantage to a student or the attempt to commit such an act.
Procedures to be followed in the event of alleged academic dishonesty are described in the Rules and Regulations of the Board of Regents of The University of Texas System, and the GSBS student handbook found at http://www.gsbs.utmb.edu/current/handbook/default.html. Alleged academic dishonesty issues should be reported to the Associate Dean for Student Affairs of the Graduate School.
COURSE EVALUATIONS:
The UTMB Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences has recently mandated that students are required to complete a course evaluation form as part of their overall course requirements. If the online TeleCampus course evaluation form is not completed, an “I” Incomplete grade will be reported to the Office of Enrollment Services. If the course requirements are not completed within 30 days, the grade automatically converts to an “F” (Failure grade).
TECHNICAL SUPPORT:
The UT TeleCampus (UTTC) provides free 24/7 help desk support to academic students, faculty members teaching online through the UTTC, and the UT System campus staff who support them. The Help Desk can provide answers to questions about using UT TeleCampus technology and services, as well as technical support. Information on how to contact the UT TeleCampus Help Desk is available online at www.uttchelpdesk.org.
The UTTC planned to contact you before this course began and to provide orientation information. If you need to refresh your memory about how the UTTC works, this link will take you to the Getting Started pages.
Assignments
Each activity of the course is an assignment, and the four assignments are described in the Assignments menu items found on the left. To complete the course, you complete the four assignments. Below are brief descriptions of each assignment.
- Assignment 1 - An introduction to the course and instructors. We will examine the healthcare provider's role in suffering.
This assignment includes two movies where the major instructors read poems about suffering. This is done to introduce various modes of exploring suffering. The two movies are linked below:
- Kay Sandor reading
The Scarred Girl.
- Rodger Marion reading The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.
Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, you may want to go get some more coffee or tea while these Flash files download. Once downloaded, you can watch them without interruptions.
- Assignment 2 - In this assignment we will explore how different religions look at suffering and discuss their viewpoints.
One of the resources for Assignment 2 is our Guest Instructor, Harold Vanderpool.
- A conversation with Harold Vanderpool, Ph.D. on Theodicy (2008, video, 22 minutes, Flash format). Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, you may want to go get some more coffee or tea while the file downloads. Once downloaded, you can watch it without interruptions.
- Bonus
. Between takes the camera captured Dr. Vanderpool musing on karma and cheap grace.
- Assignment 3 - An inquiry into student-selected areas in suffering. This assignment deals with how to define research questions, variables, and hypotheses, and how to develop a literature review. The student develops a short, highly-structured, objective, literature review of the student-selected aspect of suffering.
- Assignment 4 - This assignment has two parts. First, we will explore the emergence of suffering through the loss of cultural meaning, and in part two, the alleviation of suffering through the process of making meaning. The student develops an essay exploring these two aspects of suffering as revealed thru several books and films.
Live Seminar
Do consider participating in the weekly live, but optional, Internet class, Live Seminar. It will be from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM every Thursday evening. The first Live Seminar will be September 3, 2009.
The purpose of the Live Seminar is to answer questions in a real-time setting and to generate a dialog between the students and the instructors. Your instructors will be prepared to answer any question and explain any concept.
This semester we will hold our weekly, optional, on-line class in the virtual world of Second Life. Class will meet at the Live Seminar classroom in Second Life each Thursday from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM.
If you already have an account in SL, then this web link will take you to the classroom: http://slurl.com/secondlife/UT%20Austin%201/214/227/22.
Dr. Sandor's SL avatar is named Kay Texan and Dr. Marion’s is Rodger Markova.
If you have no experience in SL, please follow the directions below. Using SL appears a bit complicated but it is easily managed. Because virtual worlds are becoming a regular part of education, we have chosen to hold the Live Seminar in one. We feel SL is easier to use and has more options than the video conferencing and live chat applications we have used previously. So, please, participate in this optional part of the course.
After each class a log of the chat will be posted here for those who could not attend or who want to review the discussion.
- Here is an example from the seminar of July 2, 2009
The people shown at the top and bottom of this page are survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. They are living in a tent city as their homes were either destroyed by the earthquake or by the fires that followed. They are making meaning of their situation and striving to leave suffering behind.
Copyright 2008-2009 by Rodger Marion and Kay Sandor