The aim of this module is to understand applied pharmacology in light of the basic principles studied in BIOL2048. The course is structured to provide knowledge for the key areas in which drug actions are applied to treat disease. Lectures will be accompanied by practical, with alternatives in place if required to meet minimum learning outcomes.
On successful completion of the module, practitioners are eligible to register as an independent and/or supplementary prescriber in accordance with current professional standards and regulations. Students are required to fulfil all current professional requirements for course entry in accordance with the Nursing and Midwifery council (NMC 2018), and the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC 2019). Nurses and midwives will normally be qualified for three years, and working in the area in which they will be prescribing for at least one year, prior to commencing the module. AHPs are required to be working in the area where they will prescribe for 3 years (HCPC). Paramedics are required to be qualified for five years and have undertaken or are working towards an advanced practice qualification (as defined by Health Education England, usually an MSc) (College of Paramedics 2018, annex F). Nurses and midwives must have a practice supervisor and practice assessor (NMC Standards for Student Supervision and Assessment 2018). The supervisor would normally be a medical prescriber, a pharmacist independent prescriber or an experienced nurse independent prescriber working in a similar area of practice, who holds an MSc level qualification. The practice assessor would normally be a medical doctor. AHPs are required to have a designated prescribing practitioner (DPP) in practice who facilitates 12 days (90) hrs learning in practice. This time can also be spent with experienced pharmacists and NMPs while retaining the DPP as the key assessor. All practice supervisors and practice assessors will be invited to an introduction to programme, to develop an understanding of the programme, the programme outcomes, their role as a practice supervisor and/or practice assessor, and to support them in practice. This will also be an opportunity to engage with other practice supervisors and practice assessors and share experiences. For those who are unable to attend there will be access to Blackboard for information, and a recording of the introduction session available. All relevant course materials and programme handbook will be emailed to them prior to course commencement. Support for their role can be offered, on an individual basis, if required. University policy/ placement guidelines apply.
On successful completion of the module, practitioners are eligible to register as an independent and/or supplementary prescriber in accordance with current professional standards and regulations. Please see special features section for detailed entry requirements.
This module is to describe basic concepts in neuropharmacology e.g. on the localisation and putative function of neurotransmitter pathways in the brain, and to use this knowledge to consider different theories relating to the biochemical basis of action of psychotomimetic and psychotropic drugs. This is used as a foundation to consider the biochemical basis of major neuropsychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, depression and anxiety, and neurodevelopmental disorders e.g. autism spectrum disorders. It will progress to highlight emerging opportunities for treatment of psychiatric conditions.
The module provides an introduction to functional brain anatomy and important neurotransmitter signalling pathways. This is used as a framework on which to describe the symptoms and treatment of neuropsychiatric disoders, such as schizophrenia. The possible underlying causes of these disorders, and advances in therapy, are discussed in the light of the most recent research in these topics.
Philosophical logic provides tools for the rigorous study of some of the most central notions of philosophy and of ordinary thought - for instance, necessity and possibility (modal logic), time (temporal logic), moral obligation (deontic logic), and knowledge and belief (epistemic logic). You will learn about some of these logical tools, and use them to explore the philosophical questions that they both raise and help to illuminate. For instance, is your existence necessary? What is the nature of time? Can you be obliged to do something you are unable to do? What’s the difference between knowledge and belief?
This module provides you with a critical introduction to the philosophical development of the common law through an examination of key concepts and principles within private and public law that are essential for full and critical engagement with the substance of any core module as well as with any more specialist area. The module will examine some of the central conceptual and normative notions that underpin the common law, such as the private vs. public; doctrine of precedent; coercion; desert and entitlement; justice; ownership; duties and rights; promises and agreements; causation; responsibility; community; authority; sex/gender. This list is not exhaustive and can vary slightly from year to year. By reflecting on these key concepts and principles you will gain a deeper understanding of the nature of law and be able to present innovative and persuasive legal argument as part of your studies and future legal practice.
Philosophical pessimism argues in various ways that life is negative in value, the most extreme position being that it would have been better not to have existed. It provides a challenge to many philosophical and commonsense assumptions about value. In the 17th and 18th centuries thinkers such as Bayle, Hume, and Voltaire had begun to develop pessimist views and were opposed by Leibniz’s optimism in Theodicy (1710). Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) is regarded as the most serious systematic exponent of pessimism. He focuses on the suffering and unfulfillment of desires that characterize life, and controversially interprets Christianity and Buddhism as essentially pessimistic religions. Both Schopenhauer and Buddhism, however, offer a positive solution to suffering through a transformation in consciousness. Schopenhauer’s work influenced a German school of idiosyncratic pessimists in the late 19th century. In this climate, Nietzsche took on some aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy in his early work, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), but in later works argued for an attitude of ‘saying Yes to life’, disputing the negative value of suffering. In contemporary philosophy, David Benatar’s anti-natalism has revived the view that existing is always worse than non-existing, arguing that we should not bring new human beings into existence.
The science of psychology and the project of artificial intelligence raise profound philosophical issues as they attempt to understand, simulate and even go beyond human thought. Some concern the kind of explanation that these ventures seek: If we understand the brain, do we understand the mind? How do psychological theories stand to neurological and sociological theories? Must psychological theories model the underlying neurology? Or might psychological theories instead rest instead on broader generalisations that are independent of such details? That they can do so might be a requirement if we are to make sense of the idea that machines might think or feel despite having no nervous system remotely like ours. Or should we instead conclude that machines could never think or feel? Other philosophical issues these projects raise are ethical: Does the status of psychology as a science require that its theories not commit us to value judgments about how we live? Is that possible even when we theorise about topics such as mental health and illness? And what new ethical dilemmas might we face as we autonomous systems become more sophisticated? This module aims to explore questions such as these.
Students taking this module undertake research on a philosophical topic of their choice (subject to approval by the Department), and write a dissertation of 8,000 words on that topic.
You will complete a dissertation on a subject of your choice, subject to available supervisory expertise.
An Individually Negotiated Topic offers you the opportunity to explore in detail some central themes in a philosophical area of your choice. The areas that can be studied vary but may include, among others, Plato, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Contemporary Aesthetics, History of Aesthetics, Ethics, Epistemology, Philosophical Logic, Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science, Feminist Philosophy.
An Individually Negotiated Topic offers students the opportunity to explore in detail some central themes in a philosophical area of their choice. The areas that can be studied may include, among others, Plato, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Contemporary Aesthetics, History of Aesthetics, Ethics, Epistemology, Philosophical Logic, Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science, Feminist Philosophy.
This module introduces students to philosophical approaches in understanding organisations and their management. The module will consist of three interrelated themes. The first will comprise the attempt to familiarise students with the essential problems at the heart of philosophical debate and expose them to different ways of dealing with them. The second theme will be organised around contemporary schools of thought and thinkers (e.g. logical positivism and Foucault), and founding intellectual fathers of economic thought (e.g. Marx). During these sessions we will be preoccupied with utilising various philosophical lenses in order to make sense of organisational phenomena, gain a better grasp of the intellectual origins of our extant understandings, and critically reflect upon taken-for-granted views about managing. The final theme will concentrate more sharply on organisational settings by studying how advances in organisational theory have afforded important philosophical insights into organisations and (the possibility of) their management.
Can there be a proof that God exists? Or might phenomena such as suffering serve to show that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being cannot exist? Such questions are central to the philosophy of religion; attempting to answer them leads us to reflect on such topics as the character of religious belief, its relation with science and morality, the place of reason in religion, and the meaning of religious language. Giving some attention to religious ideas and conceptions of religion beyond those developed in the Abrahamic traditions, this module will explore some of those questions and the issues they raise. It is possible to undertake this module successfully without having completed the first year module, Faith and Reason. However, this module can be seen as building on that one. The subject matter of the second year module will be more advanced and will be explored in greater depth.
We build our world on scientific knowledge, in fact we stake our lives on it. Every time we board a train, send an email or take a medical drug we reaffirm our trust in the products of science. But what, if anything, gives science the authority it seems to have? Is there a particular method that is distinctive of science? Can we distinguish science from pseudo-science? And how do the sciences generate and confirm theories from limited series of particular observations? Should we believe that the best-supported scientific theories and models are true, or should we merely accept that they 'work'? And what should our attitudes towards unobservable entities be? Finally, can science be a wholly neutral and objective mode of investigating reality? Or is it distorted by the values and interests of individual scientists and the societies they live in? And does that mean that its results must be understood in relation to the social, historical and ideological context in which it is carried out? The aim of this module is to introduce you to some of the basic problems, concepts and positions in the philosophy of science, and to encourage reflection on the power, and also the limitations, of scientific methods of thinking.
In this module you will explore some major philosophical questions related to sex, sexuality and gender. We will consider general questions about the nature of sex, sexuality and gender: What makes an act sexual? What is a sexual orientation? What is gender? We will connect general theories to concrete issues in the ethics of sex, sexuality and gender, discussing issues such as whether monogamy is permissible, legal protection of sexual orientation and the role of gender in public and private life.
This module will look at the dominant traditions in the philosophy of social science and how these have shaped substantive research within the study of the social sciences.
