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Before I post my MANY complaints about this class, I'd like to start by saying that I am a hard worker, and generally never complain about classes or professors. I'm a junior at WKU and double majoring in Nursing & Spanish, as well as a member of the honors college. I have an almost 4.0 (one B) and have mustered through some truly difficult classes with my head above water. That being said, I feel that I have credibility when I say that Dr. Pinnick is the WORST professor I have EVER had! Yes I did get an A in this class (only by the grace of God), but this class has been a true thorn in my side.
It's not that the material is difficult, it is 100% that the professor is terrible. She will make your life painful. She is the rudest, most unapproachable woman. For an online class, one would assume that the professor would encourage communication through email since there is no chance to ask questions in the class room. Not so with her. Don't ever send her an email. It's truly pointless as she will never actually answer your questions, and will instead insult you and go on and on about how you need to try harder, read more, etc. (even if you are just asking a general question about grading or something like that). Expect no help from her at all. She actually taught this class from Hawaii, so don't count on trying to go see her in her office!
Her teaching methods are ridiculous. Your whole grade will be based on 2 essays! That's it! She will give you the opportunity to do an "optional essay" at the beginning of the semester. I recommend doing it, just so you can see how she grades (and also I think that puts you on better terms with her, and I think her grading has a lot to do with how she feels about you... so try to stay on her good side). For the first graded essay, she will give you the prompt three days before the essay is due. You then have three days to advocate for the position that she gives you. Her positions take forever to figure out (as well as a dictionary as she uses very advanced vocabulary). You will do lots of reading and watch a ton of movies that seem to have nothing to do with anything that you are studying. Use the movies as your "case studies" when you write your papers. I think the grading is dependent on her mood and based on if she likes your paper or not. She will give you comments about it after she grades it, but she never explains why you get the grade that you get. Some students in the class received very poor grades while others received great grades for papers of virtually the same quality.
The final was a nightmare. She gives no explanation ahead of time about the format. All you know going into it, is that you have two hours to take it, and that it could be over anything. She contradicts herself because she says that to write a proper paper, one must spend at least three days on it (writing, and rewriting, proof reading etc.). Yet, for the final, you have only two hours! You won't get the prompt until you begin the test. The prompt was even more challenging than the previous prompts were, except there was no time to really figure out what it meant. You will write your essay as fast as you can and then discover that you also have 10 terms to define.... again, all within two hours. I did my best on the final but felt like I failed it. It was impossible to do a good job in only two hours. She must not have graded it too strictly, however, since I ended up with an A in the class.
And finally, the class content has nothing to do with biomedical ethics, it's really just an intro to ethics class. Biomedical ethics is supposed to teach about ethical issues that are actually relevant to medicine, such as abortion, prolonging life, ending suffering, pharmaceutical companies etc. This class discussed none of those things. There is one text book, which is excellent, that discusses medical case studies and issues that are actually relevant to medicine, but we hardly read that book at all. A few of the movies were related to medical issues, but that's about it. I took this class because I was required to for nursing. I was genuinely excited about it and looking forward to the subject matter. If I had known that it would be such a terrible and difficult class, and that we would not be discussing any medical issues, I would have taken a general ethics class with a different professor just to meet that requirement. I would not recommend this class to anyone! Truly. Half of the class dropped after the first few weeks. The rest of us who stuck with it, formed a study group to try to help each other muster through (since we weren't going to get ANY support from the prof). Everyone felt the way I did. We all loathed this class. If you aren't required to take this specific course, don't do it! The only redeeming thing about this whole class, is that it's a biterm, so the nightmare only lasts 8 weeks.
Like I stated earlier, I did get an A in this class, so it's not impossible; however, I am the only one in the class, that I know of, who received an A. It's not that the material is difficult. I'm writing this because I strongly disagree with her teaching methods and want to discourage everyone from having to endure such a painful and frustrating class if at all possible. My sincere hope is that WKU will look into her many grievances and terminate her teaching career.
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