There are some basic considerations that should enter into your planning for the coverage of your course.
Is this course being offered for the first time?
If not, you should consult with the previous teacher, who may be on the full-time faculty. In addition to helping you decide about casebooks, he or she can provide invaluable guidance on the other questions discussed below.
What other health-law related courses are offered at your school?
Many schools offer one or more health-law courses, including:
- basic survey course—broad coverage of major regulatory, transactional, litigation, and liability issues
- medical malpractice
- bioethics
- food and drug
- specialized courses (e.g., "health law and . . . " courses, such as antitrust, disability, mental health, tax, fraud and abuse, race and gender, etc.)
You will need to know what these other courses cover in order to keep overlaps with your course to a minimum.
Getting help from the authors and other casebook users.
A good starting place for a syllabus is the table of contents of the casebook you have selected. From there, you can start to see where some cuts and additions might be made. Most casebooks are edited with this process in mind and lend themselves to some fairly major overhauls. Also, casebook editors tend to be quite accessible and helpful in their willingness to share their syllabi and experiences teaching from their books. Publishers' representatives (and sometimes the editors) can also put you in touch with other users around the country.
In addition, most casebooks come with teachers' manuals. Some of these teachers' manuals have a sample syllabus from one or more of the editors. Nearly all teachers' manuals provide a running commentary as to where material might be cut without losing the main point, as well as how the casebook readings might be reorganized if your course will have a particular emphasis.
Check out the "syllabus bank."
Saint Louis University School of Law maintains a syllabus bank for various health-law-related courses around the country. For access to the syllabus bank, send an email to Professor Sidney Watson.
Be realistic about workload and time constraints.
The academic dean and other full-time faculty can provide guidance as to the average length of reading assignments. Students commonly complain about two-credit courses (often adjunct-taught) that require the same effort as a three- or four-credit course. You can expect students to be willing to work hard, but effective teaching requires realism as to how much material can be meaningfully covered in class and on the final examination.
Are you offering an exam course, a writing course, or both?
The traditional law-school course consists of a semester's worth of classes followed by one final examination. Most courses do not include a mid-term examination. If you decide to offer one, you should be willing to grade and return the exams promptly so that the experience will be useful for the students. The same goes for any writing/drafting assignments you may be planning.