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Synopsis

Dear students,
a warm welcome to UTC1408 (formerly known as GEM1909) technology and human progress! John Wilkins' quote is a good example of the bold creativity that is often necessary to advance technology. He was ridiculed in 1640 and yet...
The theme of the course in the second semester of UTC1408 technology and human progress is healthcare technology: past, present and future. Having a technical background is not necessary to enjoy this module. The content is designed to cater to all students.

The module description available on the CAPT website captures well the spirit of this course. I report it here for convenience:
Every time we are sick, we visit one or more doctors in the hope that our ailments will be correctly diagnosed and treated. For each set of symptoms, the doctor has at his/her disposal an arsenal of weapons ready to be unleashed in the war against disease. Doctors must know how to use these weapons appropriately: but have you ever wondered who makes those “weapons”? In this module, we will peek behind the scenes to see what happens when technology is employed in medicine. A wide variety of professionals – from engineers to biologists, from statisticians to politicians – have always conspired in an interdisciplinary effort to improve the available technology to fight disease. Millions of lives have been – and will be – saved thanks to such efforts of often unsung heroes. We will cover selected applications of technology applied to healthcare in a simple and non-technical way, focussing on how they came about, how they are used and the issues they face, including the ethical ones.

Learning Outcomes

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The main aim of the lecturer is to arouse students' interest in the fascinating topic of harnessing technology to improve our health.
From a student perspective, the learning outcomes are as follows. At the end of the module, students should be able to:

1) Identify the presence of technology in healthcare applications

2) Describe how selected technologies improve healthcare delivery

3) Recognize the need for a multidisciplinary approach to provide effective healthcare technology solutions

4) Discuss the diverse implications of healthcare technology in terms of patients' needs, ethical concerns and societal issues

Prerequisites

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There are no specific pre-requisite other than being willing to engage with your classmates and the lecturer to learn new things. In particular, no specific technical knowledge is required for this course.

Teaching Modes

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Each week the seminar session will focus on a specific topic: the "Topic of the Week". There will be a traditional instructional part with the basics of the topic followed by students' discussion activities.

Besides seminar-style sessions, there will be field trips (within NUS) and one or two guest lecturers. Students should be aware and understanding of the fact that guest lecturers may not be available for both sessions of this course: hence combined sessions may be arranged whenever a guest lecturer will be invited.

Syllabus

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The list of "Topics of the Week" may include a combination of the following (each of the following may take one or more weeks):

- Technologies to fix our heart
- Brain-machine interfaces
- Sports injuries
- Technology for childbirth
- Technology for cancer
- Technology in surgery
- Dialysis
- Drugs and their development

Assessment

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This is a CS/CU graded module. As a general rule, those students contributing a significant amount of work will get 'CS'. Students trying to pass the module without doing anything will get a 'CU'.

In more detail, the requirements to get 'CS' are as follows:

Successful completion of the project assignment (see below). This implies
- passing the mid-semester project check
- submission of the final report (at least 2,500 words)
- presentation of your project near the end of the semester (date to be confirmed)
Submission of at least 7 reflections on the "Topic of the Week" (at least 300 words each and judged satisfactory by the lecturer).
Score at least 30 participation points.

You may earn participation points as follows:

arriving within 10 minutes of the start of the class (0.5), staying until the end (0.5) and giving undivided attention to the class activities (1 point)
participating in the class discussion (max 1 point per session), awarded by the lecturer.

Project Assignment

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The project assignment is a significant component of this course.

The project involves performing independent research on a specific technology that is chosen by the student and approved by the lecturer. The technology can be an existing one or a future one (including science fiction). Students will have the freedom to choose the angle of their research work on the chosen technology, e.g.., technical, economical, social, scientific, ethical, etc.

The following restrictions apply:

The chosen technology can be of any nature but must be aimed either at improving health (as this is the main topic of the course), or, more broadly, to be a useful tool for the life of the community.
The research work should be incremental and not performed at the last minute: to ensure this a mid-semester progress check will be implemented

Once the student has chosen the technology and his/her preferred angle, the expectations and details of the project will be established between the student and the lecturer.

Preclusions

TopGEM1909

Workload

Top0-3-0-3-4

Workload Components : A-B-C-D-E
A: no. of lecture hours per week
B: no. of tutorial hours per week
C: no. of lab hours per week
D: no. of hours for projects, assignments, fieldwork etc per week
E: no. of hours for preparatory work by a student per week