Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

1) Explain how biomedical technologies have transformed understandings and practices of health, illness, and healthcare.
2) Analyze biomedical technologies as sociotechnical systems involving patients, healthcare professionals, engineers, institutions, regulations, data, and technologies.
3) Identify and evaluate ethical and social issues associated with the development and use of medical technologies, including safety, responsibility, accessibility, privacy, and health inequality.
4) Examine healthcare technologies from multiple stakeholder perspectives, including those of patients, physicians, caregivers, engineers, hospitals, and communities.
5) Critically assess emerging biomedical technologies and AI in healthcare, considering both their potential benefits and unintended consequences.
6) Develop responsible and user-centered ideas for future biomedical technologies or healthcare services based on interdisciplinary inquiry.

• Ida Sim and Christine Cassel. (2024). The Ethics of Relational AI — Expanding and Implementing the Belmont Principles. The New England Journal of Medicine 391(3): 193-196.
• Levi-Strauss (1963): The Sorcerer and his Magic. In: Levi-Strauss, Claude: Structural Anthropology. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books.
• 인공지능 기본법
• The Medical Futurist
• 닥터프렌즈

Part I: Conceptual backgrounds about medicine
• In the first part, we will review how advances in science, technology, and medicine have shaped life and lifestyle choices.
• Readings from Atul Gawande’s _Complications_ & 이낙준 _오! 마이갓세계사_
• Lecture slides will be provided to complement the readings.

[week 1]
• Icebreaking: Meet your classmates and the instructor
• Medical practices before the emergence of modern sciences
• Participate in the discussion about our understanding of life and death
• Lecture slides
[week 2]
• Main question: How did human beings experience and organize bodies and nature before the invention of biology and technology?
• Healing practices before and the rise of science and medicine
• Medicine, rationality, witchcraft
• Lecture slides
[week 3]
• Physicians vs. surgeons before the twentieth century
• Qualitative medicine and scientific medicine
• Reading
[week 4]
• Hospital as the center of care
• Technology and hospital
• Health literacy: the degree to which individuals are able to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others
[week 5]
• Standardization of practice and datafication
• Patients’ experience, doctor-patient relationship
[week 6]
• Innovative drugs and manageable illness
[week 7]
• Integrative and complementary medicine
• Innovation, ethics, and regulation
[week 8]
• Assignment: idea writing

Part II: AI in Medicine and Healthcare (cases)
Recent cases will be introduced.

[week 9]
• Review
• IT merging with healthcare
• Healthcare platforms
[week 10]
• IVF
• ELSI
[week 11]
• History of surgical technology
• Da Vinci robotic system
• Merge between surgical robotics and AI
[week 12]
• Rehab robotics
• Merge with AI
• Students’ idea presentation of final project
[week 13]
• Futures of hospital, doctor, patient, care
• Ethical and legal concerns; domestic and international perspectives
[week 14]
• Global health and equity
• What competencies are required in the age of AI?
[week 15]
• Overview of MD/PhD
• Engineer and physician
• Engineer and healthcare technologies
[week 16]
• Final project submission

• ‘Respect’ is a cornerstone of this class.
• Attendance is mandatory and will be taken from week 3. However, one absence will not be counted toward the final grade.
• The instructor will take attendance, so students do not need to swipe their cards in the system.
• Late assignments may be accepted only with the instructor’s permission under certain circumstances. Students should contact the instructor in advance if they need an extension.
• PLMS is the main communication medium for announcements, readings, lecture slides, assignments, and more. Students can find assignment details (due dates, submission instructions, etc.) on PLMS.