This volume provides a history of Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE), a basic understanding of the physiology of the eosinophil, and a current understanding of the pathophysiology and genetics of EoE. The emphasis is on clinical applications including presenting symptoms, diagnosis and treatment options for patients with EoE. Written by both pediatric and adult experts in the fields of gastroenterology, allergy and pathology, this volume includes the most up to date information. Providing practical information useful in the treatment of patients, this book will be of great value to gastroenterologists, allergists, pathologists, medical residents, fellows, internists, and general practitioners who treat patients with eosinophilic esophagitis.

The harmful consequences of alcoholism for the unborn child are still largely unknown. This book presents a detailed description of fetal alcohol syndrome as well as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders with respect to their clinical presentation, diagnosis, epidemiology, and pathogenesis. It also includes detailed considerations of underlying psychopathology, prevention, and therapy as well as the social consequences and impacts to patients.

This book uniquely explores American cultural values as a factor in maternal health. It looks beyond the social determinants of health as primarily contributing to the escalating maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States.    The United States is an outlier with poor maternal health outcomes and high morbidity/mortality in comparison to other high-resource and many mid-level resource nations. While the social determinants of health identify social and environmental conditions affecting maternal health, they do not answer the broader underlying question of why many American women, in a high-resource environment, experience poor maternal health outcomes. Frequent near-misses, high levels of severe childbearing-related morbidity, and high maternal mortality are comparable to those of lower-resource nations.  This book includes contributions from recognized medical and cultural anthropologists, and diverse clinical and public health professionals. The authors examine American patterns of decision-making from the perspectives of intersecting social, cultural, and medical values influencing maternal health outcomes. Using an interdisciplinary critical analysis approach, the work draws upon decision-making theory and life course theory. Topics explored include: Cultural values as a basis for decision-making Social regard for motherhood Immigrants, refugees and undocumented mothers Cultural conflicts and maternal autonomy Health outcomes among justice-involved mothers Maternal Health and American Cultural Values: Beyond the Social Determinants is an essential resource for clinical and public health practitioners and their students, providing a framework for graduate-level courses in public health, the health sciences, women’s studies, and the social sciences. The book also targets anthropologists, sociologists, and women studies scholars seeking to explain the links between American cultural decision-making and health outcomes. Policy-makers, ethicists, journalists, and advocates for reproductive health justice also would find the text a useful resource.

This book focuses on a formative period in the development of modern general practice. The foundations of present-day health care in Britain were created in the century before the National Health Service of 1948, when medicine was transformed in its structure, professional status, economic organization, and therapeutic power. In the first full-length study of general practice for these years, Anne Digby deploys an impressive range of hitherto unused archival material and oral testimony to probe the character of general practitioners careers and practices, and to assess their relationships with local communities, a wider society, and the state. An evolutionary approach is adopted to explain the origins and nature of the many changes in medical practice, and the lives of ordinary doctors. The study also explores the gendered nature of medical practice as reflected in the experience of a golden band of women GPs, and examines the hidden role of the doctors wife in the practice.

Schizophrenia is a disease that afflicts some 2.2 million persons of all ages. It has a wide-ranging impact on the lives of not just the people who have it, but also the people who love them. In an era of de-institutionalization and managed care, parents and other adults, such as teachers and coaches, will become the first line of defense against this serious disease that attacks people in their the late teens or early twenties. If Your Adolescent Has Schizophrenia is an informative guide, written specifically to help adults spot the warning signs and seek appropriate treatment for the young people in their lives. Parents will find a clear definition of the disease, including early indicators of the disease as well as information on how to arrange for the proper diagnosis and treatment. Using the experiences of parents with children who have the illness themselves, this book will provide an insiders survival guide for those now facing this illness in their own children. While enormous strides have been made toward identifying likely causes and effective remedies of schizophrenia in recent decades, no one therapeutic regimen works perfectly in all cases. If Your Adolescent Has Schizophrenia will offer readers trusted information and support that will enable them to confront this disorder head on and get their children meaningful medical and psychosocial help in order to mitigate its effects.

This book will enable practicing physicians and trainees to learn, in a clinically relevant and intellectually stimulating way, guidelines for appropriate ordering of imaging exams. The new edition provides more than 460 clinical case scenarios, organized into subspecialty modules (breast, cardiac, thoracic, gastrointestinal, urologic, women's, pediatric, vascular, musculoskeletal, and neurologic imaging). Each scenario is presented as a quiz in which the reader is invited to select the best option from various imaging modalities. All choices are given ratings of appropriateness and is consistent with the American College of Radiology (ACR) Appropriateness Criteria. Furthermore, a brief solution to each case is included. Finally, over 500 radiologic images are included each associated with a clinical case to illustrate the diagnostic capabilities of the imaging exam. This second edition incorporates new content and revisions to remain consistent with the updated ACR Appropriateness Criteria since the original publication in 2012. It will be an ideal tool both for self-study and for quantitative evaluation of students' knowledge.

This book presents the latest knowledge on both the physiological and the microbiological aspects of wound healing. Fresh insights into the process of cutaneous wound healing are described, which involves tissue regeneration and repair processes consisting of a sequence of molecular and cellular events. The management of infected wounds is then discussed in detail, covering the roles of traditional medicine practices, novel anti-infective formulations, non-antibiotic approaches, and probiotic bacteria. A section devoted to the interdisciplinary approach to wound care addresses topics including in vitro and in vivo research models, the development of advanced wound dressings, tissue engineering, and the potential applications of bioscaffolds. The authors are all leading researchers in the field. This book is an attempt to showcase current research status and future directions in the area of wound-healing research, which must be of interest to a large group of readers and researchers interested in this field.

Written and peer reviewed by experts in practice and academia, the 20th edition of the Handbook of Nonprescription Drugs: An Interactive Approach to Self-Care is an authoritative resource for students and for health care providers who counsel and care for patients undertaking self-treatment-nonprescription drugs, nutritional supplements, medical foods, nondrug and preventive measures, and complementary therapies. Its goal is to develop the knowledge and problem-solving skills needed to assess a patient's health status and current practice of self-treatment, to determine whether self-care is necessary or appropriate, and, if appropriate, to recommend safe and effective self-care measures. KEY FEATURES: Enhanced content in all chapters from the previous edition with up-to-date information beneficial to all health care providers and students. Updates to the universal objectives to complement the content in the chapters focused on medical disorders. Abstracts for each online chapter providing concise introductory material focused on key features of each chapter. Up-to-date content on nonprescription medications including indications, dosages, interactions, current evidence, medical conditions and prescription to nonprescription reclassifications. Quick-reference tools such as treatment algorithms (including exclusions for self-treatment), drug product tables, patient education sidebars, and product administration illustrations.

This handbook provides tools for nurse educators, ethics educators, practicing nurses and allied health professionals for developing confidence and skill in ethical decision making in interdisciplinary settings such as acute and chronic care hospitals and clinics. It is useful for all healthcare personnel who face ethical issues in the course of their work and who work with nurses to resolve these issues. While the content is based on a US context, the concerns of nurses internationally are discussed and emphasized. Nurses working in acute and chronic care settings face many obstacles to providing good care and are often the first line of defense related to patient safety and meeting the needs of patients and their families. Some of the obstacles to optimal patient care are institutional, some sociocultural, and others the result of inadequate communication. Evidence points to the idea that while nurses do have the knowledge and skills to address practice problems of various sorts, they may not be confident in their skills of ethical decision making and advocacy actions. This is a resource to develop moral agency on behalf of individuals and to address broader barriers to good care raised at the local, community, or social levels.

Despite children making up around a quarter of the population, the first edition of this book was the first to focus on a public health approach to the health and sickness of children and young people. It combined clinical and academic perspectives to explore the current state of health of our children, the historical roots of the speciality and the relationship between early infant and child health on later adult health. Child public health is a rapidly developing field, and is increasingly recognised throughout the world as a major area of focus for population health. Targeting the health of children now is essential if we are to achieve a healthy population as adults. For the second edition the text has been revised and updated with new material on health for all children, global warming, child participation, systems theory, refugees, commissioning, and sustainable development.
Child Public Health 2e will be of interest to public health practitioners, paediatricians, general practitioners with a child health and commissioning interest and GP trainees. Whilst pediatricians are given a unique population perspective on their clinical specialty, public health professionals will gain a specialist insight into a specific population group and primary care doctors, nurses and managers will find support for their commissioning and clinical governance agendas.

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is rapidly becoming a global healthcare problem with an estimated 10% of the general population affected. As a result, it is becoming increasingly important that primary care physicians and general physic, as well as aspiring nephrologists, have a firm understanding of CKD as well as access to the key information.
Practical and highly-accessible, this book provides a comprehensive guide to the understanding and management of patients with CKD. It offers both primary care physicians and non-nephrology specialists an introduction to and insights into the disease. The emphasis is on practical guidance and a focused approach to a number of key topics in the field including epidemiology, diagnosis and management, and the impact of CKD on chronic, non-communicable disease.
This is a unique contribution by internationally renowned experts in the CKD field to update primary care physicians and non-specialists on major issues in this growing global healthcare problem.

Mood disorders are a global health issue. National guidance for their detection and management have been published in the US and in Europe. Despite this, the rate at which depression is recognized and managed in primary and secondary care settings remains low and suggests that many clinicians are still unsure how to screen people for mood disorders. Against the backdrop of this problem, the editors of this volume have designed a book with a dynamic two-fold purpose: to provide an evidence-based overview of screening methods for mood disorders, and to synthesize the evidence into a practical guide for clinicians in a variety of settings--from cardiologists and oncologists, to primary care physicians and neurologists, among others. The volume considers all important aspects of depression screening, from the overview of specific scales, to considerations of technological approaches to screening, and to the examination of screening with neurological disorders, prenatal care, cardiovascular conditions, and diabetes and cancer care, among others. This book is sure to capture the attention of any clinician with a stake in depression screening.

This book covers several areas, such as immunology, infectious diseases, physiology, general nursing, and medicine as well as measurement accuracy and the history of our understanding of fever. This book employs an interdisciplinary approach to exploring our concept of body temperature and specifically fever. The present volume revolves around thermometry, taking the reader on a journey from the past to the present. Yet while the emphasis is on the clinical importance of obtaining accurate, quantitative measurements of body temperature, the reader is also introduced to the most recent clinical work on the subject. This book represents a truly cross-disciplinary collaboration, using evidence-based practice to integrate physiological and immunological knowledge. The authors' intention with this volume is to help readers gain better insight into the importance of using knowledge from different disciplines to develop an appreciation of the different aspects of body temperature. In addition, the reader will come to understand the concept of fever in a broader perspective than is traditionally adopted.

This is the second edition of a well-received book that has been revised and updated to reflect the state of the art in laser and light source technology. After an initial chapter describing the latest understanding of laser physics and safety, subsequent chapters consider laser treatment of vascular lesions, laser treatment of pigmented lesions and tattoos, laser removal of unwanted hair, ablative and non-ablative fractional resurfacing, and use of laser treatment for medical purposes. The book is extremely practical and reader friendly. All chapters are very well illustrated, include quick and clear bullet points, and feature a homogeneous structure covering core concepts, currently available technologies, indications and contraindications, an example of a consent form, and the author's personal treatment approaches. The authors are without exception world experts in the field from North America or Europe.

This book provides a comprehensive review of the complex, growing mental health challenges faced by culturally diverse populations of children and adolescents.Suicide Among Diverse Youth: A Case-Based Guidebook is the first book of its kind, and is designed specifically to bridge the knowledge and skills gap encountered by most clinicians dealing with youth from diverse cultural backgrounds, particularly those different than that of the clinician. The title begins with two introductory chapters, which cover cultural aspects of suicidality among youth, culturally informed treatment of suicidality with diverse youth, and examples of preventative approaches. These are followed by population specific chapters which cover a broad spectrum of diverse populations, including underserved ethnic and racial populations in the United States, LGBTQ youth, as well as various immigrant populations from Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries. These case-based chapters are structured in a cohesive, easy-to-read format that promotes ease of reference, beginning with a clinical case report, review of literature, unique characteristics and risk factors associated with suicidality, and evidence-based practice provided by the authors from their considerable experience. The authors are often from the same ethnic, racial, or cultural group that they discuss in their writings; providing experiential knowledge where scientific knowledge is lacking. Suicide Among Diverse Youth: A Case-Based Guidebook is a unique resource that offers the clinical material needed to treat diverse adolescent patients with sensitive, intersectional, and culturally-informed care, and will provide an indispensable resource for medical professionals working with, and caring for these patients.

This authoritative, highly illustrated text and color atlas provides a systematic guide to commonly performed minor surgical and dermatology procedures. Accompanied by video clips, this critical resource on skin and minor surgery is designed for all trainees and practitioners, including experienced surgeons, dermatologists, family doctors, nurses, and the supporting healthcare team. Divided into four main color-coded sections, the book covers essential background information including postoperative management and aftercare, the key knowledge required for diagnosis and management, and the skills necessary to perform procedures step by step. Comprehensive coverage-Learn to perform a whole range of procedures from small skin surgical procedures to vasectomy Step-by-step techniques-See how to perform each technique with numerous color illustrations, animations and video clips Practical advice, boxes, tables, warnings, and indications of difficulty level-Achieve success and avoid common pitfalls Authoritative yet contemporary-Gain wisdom from this long-established, trusted book brought completely up to date by today's practitioners

This handbook addresses the delivery of high quality pediatric behavioral healthcare services that are multitiered, evidence-based, and integrated, involving interprofessional collaboration across child serving systems, such as pediatrician offices and schools. The book sets forth a contemporary, leading edge approach that reflects the relationship between biological and psychosocial development and the influence of multiple systems, including the family, community, school, and the healthcare system on child development and functioning. It assists child-focused providers in developing knowledge about the relationship between biological and psychosocial development and between pediatric physical health and behavioral health problems. Chapters cover common chronic illnesses and behavioral conditions and include guidelines for screening, assessment, diagnosis, prevention, and coordinated intervention. Chapters also include representative case studies that help illustrate efficacious, effective service-delivery approaches. The handbook concludes with recommendations for future research and directions for integrated pediatric behavioral healthcare. Topics featured in the Handbook include: Behavioral health aspects of chronic physical health conditions, including asthma, diabetes, chronic pain, traumatic brain injury, and cancer. Physical health implications of behavioral health and educational problems, including ADHD, learning disabilities, substance abuse, and ASD. Coping with chronic illness and medical stress. Patient adherence to medical recommendations and treatments. School reintegration after illness. The Handbook of Pediatric Behavioral Healthcare is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, therapists, and other practitioners in clinical child and school psychology, primary care medicine, social work, child and adolescent psychiatry, public health, health psychology, pediatric medicine, nursing, behavioral therapy, rehabilitation, and counseling.

Anxiety about medicine becoming impersonal and mechanised permeates the NHS. In addition, the popular media is full of stories about the health service and its unhappy staff, focusing on the belief that professionals and patients are being turned into assembly-line workers and objects. This is particularly prevalent in general practice, as plans for massive policlinics are revealed and payment systems shift seemingly inexorably towards incentives and targets. The ethos of family medicine, which places so much stress on continuity of care, psychosocial understanding of illness, and the careful management of doubt, is challenged by guidelines, governance, quality frameworks, and patient satisfaction surveys. General practice is being industrialized into primary care, or so it can seem.
This book explores the many dimensions of industrialization as it has occurred to other professions in the past, and analyses the origins of the current wave of reform in general practice. It analyses why industrialization is being pursued as a government strategy, and explores its benefits and dangers. It concludes that the medical profession has reasons for being perturbed by industrialization, but that it has advantages as well as disadvantages for the NHS and the public. Its conclusions may not please either policy makers or practitioners, but they offer ways for professionals working in the community to customise current changes in potentially beneficial ways.

Regenerative medicine (RM) is a rapidly expanding topic within orthopedic and spine surgery, sports medicine and rehabilitation medicine. In the last ten years, regenerative medicine has emerged from the fringes as a complement and challenge to evidence-based medicine. Both clinicians and patients alike are eager to be able to offer and receive treatments that don't just surgically replace or clean old joints or inject away inflammation or work as a stop-gap measure. Regenerative medicine encompasses everything from the use of stem cells and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) to prolotherapy, viscosupplementation and beyond. This book will provide healthcare practitioners dealing with spine and joint pain with the most current, up-to-date evidence-based information about which treatments work, which treatments don't, and which are on the horizon as potential game changers. Chapters are arranged in a consistent format and cover the spine, shoulder, elbow, hand and wrist, hip, knee, and foot and ankle, providing a thorough, top-to-bottom approach. A concluding chapter discusses current and future directions and applications of RM over the next decade or two. Timely and forward-thinking, Regenerative Medicine for Spine and Joint Pain will be a concise and practical resource for orthopedists, spine surgeons, sports medicine specialists, physical therapists and rehabilitation specialists, and primary care providers looking to expand their practice.

This book is written for people working in primary care, who want to understand more about how they contribute to improving the health and health care of the populations that they serve, and for people working in public health, who want to understand the essential contribution of primary care to improving health. It sets out the nature, purpose and relevance of public health approaches to primary care practitioners and primary care organizations.
Primary care teams have had a long established role in public health, providing preventive services to populations, through the registered population in general practice. This model of a registered practice population has withstood multiple reconfigurations and reorganizations within the NHS and is the envy of many countries trying to create a public health system with primary care as its heart. There are clear differences in approach, with the inevitable conflicts between the rights of the individual set against the responsibility to ensure services are delivered fairly and equitably to whole populations. this book explores this dilemma, showing how people working in primary care can cross the divide to become part of the public health system, and in doing so are well placed to make a difference to the health of their populations.

Improvements in health care in the 21st century mean people are living longer, but with the paradox that chronic illness is increasingly prevalent. Dementia, a term used to describe various different brain disorders that involve a loss of brain function that is usually progressive and eventually severe, is a condition associated with an ageing population and is becoming increasingly common. Worldwide there are approximately 24 million people with dementia, expected to rise to 81 million by 2040. Inevitably, people living with dementia will die, but their needs at the end of life are not well known. This book describes what might be achieved if the values and best practice of both dementia care and palliative care are brought together, to achieve quality end of life care for this specific group of patients. It explores what is known about the experience of dying with dementia, using a narrative approach, and develops a model that draws together a 'person-centred' approach to care. The book examines the possibilities and the challenges faced when trying to improve quality of life for people with dementia, and presents examples of good practice from across the world.

General practitioners (GPs) and other members of the Primary Health Care Team (PHCT) play a crucial role in the provision of health care for children. At least 25% of GP consultations are with children, and many of the problems encountered are specific to this population group. However, children do not represent a homogeneous population and several ages of childhood are recognised, each with its unique set of illnesses and problems: the neonate, infant, pre-school child, school age child and the adolescent. Furthermore, both the childhood population and their illnesses change with time; new illnesses such as HIV have appeared and others, not seen for many years (such as rickets, tuberculosis and congenital rubella syndrome) have returned. Thus a comprehensive knowledge of the varied aspects of child health is needed; recognition of the acutely ill child, developmental surveillance, immunisation, treatment of chronic illness, and psycho-social issues. GPs are also increasingly involved in influencing configuration and the commissioning of services at a local level. This textbook provides practical guidance for GPs, GP registrars, practice nurses and health visitors dealing with child health in the 21st century. It undertakes a focused, problem-orientated approach based on the more common childhood problems encountered by GPs. Each chapter includes the essential background theory, but the emphasis is on making the clinical approach relevant and sensitive to primary care. Solutions to clinical scenarios are provided, based upon current, best available evidence. Site and system specific chapters are combined with sections looking at wider issues such as ethics and law, multicultural issues, and immunisation.

Selected as a Doody's Core Title for 2022!Practical and highly organized, The5-Minute Clinical Consult 2023 provides rapid access to the diagnosis, treatment, medications, follow-up, and associated conditions for more than 540 disease and condition topics to help you make accurate decisions at the point of care. Organized alphabetically by diagnosis, it presents brief, bulleted points in a templated format and contains more than 100 diagnostic and therapeutic algorithms. Edited by Frank J. Domino, Robert A. Baldor, Kathleen A. Barry, Jeremy Golding, and Mark B. Stephens, this up-to-date, bestselling reference delivers maximum clinical confidence as efficiently as possible, allowing you to focus your valuable time on providing high-quality care to your patients. Get quick access to all-new content, including Ocular Trauma, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and Sick Sinus Syndrome. Find the answers you need quickly thanks to an intuitive, at-a-glance format, with concise, bulleted text; hundreds of diagnostic and therapeutic algorithms; ICD-10 codes; DSM-5 criteria; and much more. Make confident decisions aided by current evidence-based designations in each topic. A reliable, go-to resource for clinicians in primary care, family medicine, emergency medicine, nursing, and pediatrics. Written by esteemed internal medicine and family medicine practitioners and published by the leading publisher in medical content, The 5-Minute Clinical Consult 2023, 31st Edition includes a 10-Day Free Trial to 5MinuteConsult.com, an evidence-based, online workflow tool easily integrated at the point of care. 5MinuteConsult.com provides online-exclusive content, including: More than 1,200 additional topics, including the full contents of The 5-Minute Pediatric Consult and The 5-Minute Sports Medicine Consult Online-exclusive topics and algorithms on COVID-19 and Telemedicine Differential diagnosis support from an expanded collection of algorithms Current evidence-based designations highlighted in each topic Thousands of images to help support visual diagnosis of all conditions A video library of procedures, treatment, and physical therapy techniques An A-to-Z Drug Database from Facts & Comparisons (R) Guidance on laboratory test interpretation from Wallach's Interpretation of Diagnostic Tests More than 3,000 patient handouts in English and Spanish Approximately 100 Diseases and Conditions in Spanish ICD-10 codes and DSM-5 criteria FREE point-of-care CME and CE: 0.5 credits each time you search the site to find the best treatment for your patients. This activity has been reviewed and is acceptable for up to 20 prescribed credits by the AAFP and the ANCC.The 5-Minute Clinical Consult Premium 2023: 1-Year Enhanced Online Access + Print, 31st Edition or an online-only subscription, available at www.5MinuteConsult.com Consider a subscription to 5MinuteConsult.com, available for 1 year with the purchase of Enrich Your eBook Reading Experience Read directly on your preferred device(s), such as computer, tablet, or smartphone. Easily convert to audiobook, powering your content with natural language text-to-speech.

Cicely Saunders is universally acclaimed as a pioneer of modern hospice care. Trained initially in nursing and social work, she qualified in medicine in 1958 and subsequently dedicated the whole of her professional life to improving the care of the dying and bereaved people. Founding St. Christopher's Hospice in London in 1967, she encouraged a radical new approach to end of life care combining attention to physical, social, emotional and spiritual problems, brilliantly captured in her concept of "total pain." Her ideas about clinical care, education and research have been hugely influential, leading to numerous prizes and awards in recognition of her humanitarian achievements. This book includes a selection of Cicely Saunders' most important writings throughout a period of over forty years.
Full articles, chapters, editiorials, reviews, and commentaries include important clinical themes relating to the care of dying people such as pain and symptom management, issues of communication and truth telling, and the needs of particular patient groups, such as those with cancer and other diseases. The book includes pieces that reflect on the wider development of the palliative care field and on policy and organizational issues. Some of the papers take up the theme of spiritual care at the end of life, as well as the question of euthanasia, raising in turn issues of a wider theological and philosophical nature.
The articles are written for a multi-disciplinary audience and will be of enormous interest to many professionals now working in palliative care. The collection will become a key work of reference for those interested in the evolution of hospice and palliative care and will serveas an important sourcebook of many currently hard to obtain publications by the acknowledged founder of the modern hospice movement. This book will also stand as a remarkable testimony to the personal contribution of Cicely Saunders and the influence she has had upon the modern field of palliative and end of life care.

The Patient Self-Determination Act of 1990 required medical facilities to provide patients with written notification of their right to refuse or consent to medical treatment. Using this Act as an important vehicle for improving the health care decisionmaking process, Lawrence P. Ulrich explains the social, legal, and ethical background to the Act by focusing on well-known cases such as those of Karen Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan, and he explores ways in which physicians and other caregivers can help patients face the complex issues in contemporary health care practices. According to Ulrich, health care facilities often address the letter of the law in a merely perfunctory way, even though the Act integrates all the major ethical issues in health care today. Ulrich argues that well-designed conversations between clinicians and patients or their surrogates will not only assist in preserving patient dignity - which is at the heart of the Act - but will also help institutions to manage the liability issues that the Act may have introduced. He particularly emphasizes developing effective advance directives. Ulrich examines related issues, such as the negative effect of managed care on patient self-determination, and concludes with a seldom-discussed issue: the importance of being a responsible patient. Showing how the Patient Self-Determination Act can be a linchpin of more meaningful and effective communication between patient and caregiver, this book provides concrete guidance to health care professionals, medical ethicists, and patient-rights advocates.