Hi, I'm Claire Gardner. I'm a professor
here in Trinity's School of Biochemistry and Immunology,
and I'd like to
introduce a Trinity elective -
"Vaccines: Friend or Foe?"
Everyone in Ireland is routinely
vaccinated as part of our national
healthcare strategy. Most people don't
actually understand what happens in our
bodies when we are vaccinated.
And there's also been a social movement
which has argued against the need for
vaccinations, even suggesting that
vaccines may be bad for us.
But how do we
know what arguments are true in this era
of fake news?
If you want to be informed
about how vaccines work and why
sometimes they don't work, if you want to
know if vaccines are safe and understand
some of the ethical issues surrounding
vaccination,
then this is the Trinity elective for you.
So what will you learn?
You will learn about the principle of
vaccination and understand that
different kinds of immune responses are
acquired for different types of
infectious agents.
You will also learn
about some of the ethical issues
surrounding vaccination and learn to
evaluate and question some of your moral
choices.
In this elective, you will engage in a
series of face-to-face lectures to
understand the basics of how a vaccine
works.
You will also explore a vaccine
immune response in a person using an
interactive online tool.
You will engage
in newly designed ethics workshops and
you'll work with a team to deliver a
public message on vaccinations.
This
module will be assessed using a variety
of different methods and will
incorporate both individual
and teamwork components.
More information on this, along with the learning outcomes, is
available on the website.
We look forward
to welcoming you to this Trinity elective.
