Too often in English law `doctor knows best'. Reasonable Care challenges this view. It argues for patient involvement in medical decision-making. It examines critically approaches based on the assertion of patients' legal rights. It concludes that a collaborative model is best suited to enhance both therapy and autonomy.

This book is about trust and its implications for a medical theological ethics. Beginning with its earliest work, there has been attention to trust running through the bioethics literature in the United States, and much of this discussion has examined its theological elements. Clearly, trust is indispensable when describing the patient-physician relationship, so why is there a need for yet another study? There is no doubt that people generally trust physicians. Traditionally the physician is the patient's fiduciary agent, whose sole obligation is to act only in the patient's best interest. In recent times, however, there is a perception on the part of people within and without health care that physicians have other obligations that compete with their obligation to the patient. If we acknowledge that one price for the successes of technological biomedicine is high in terms of financial cost, another price of Sllccess seems to be distrust, cynicism, and suspicion directed by the public toward the medical profes sion. If this uneasiness is the price society pays for medical success, what is the price of success for the doctor? Because of their role within the social order, physicians have claimed and been granted autonomy, authority, and special status. In return, the profes sion has pledged to serve the well-being and interests of humankind. This fiduciary commitment becomes a taken-for-granted aspect of the physician's identity, both for the physician for whom this dedication is definitional and for the public which expects trustworthy service from this person."

In der Debatte uber den moralischen Status menschlicher Embryonen ist nicht immer klar, uber welche Argumente genau eigentlich gestritten wird. Dieses Studienbuch bietet Studierenden und Forschenden, aber auch dem an der aktuellen Debatte interessierten Laien die Moeglichkeit, sich uber den gegenwartigen Diskussionsstand gezielt zu informieren und die wichtigsten Argumente in klarer und knapper Form kennenzulernen. Sie besagen folgendes: Da Embryonen als Mitglieder der Spezies homo sapiens sapiens Menschen sind, besitzen sie Wurde (Spezies-Argument); Embryonen entwickeln sich kontinuierlich, d.h. ohne moralrelevante Einschnitte, zu erwachsenen Menschen, die Wurde besitzen (Kontinuumsargument); Embryonen sind in moralrelevanter Hinsicht identisch mit erwachsenen Menschen, die Wurde besitzen (Identitatsargument); Embryonen haben das Potential, Menschen zu werden, und dieses Potential ist uneingeschrankt schutzenswert (Potentialitatsargument). Diese Argumente werden jeweils durch eine Pro-Position und eine Contra-Position dargestellt und verteidigt oder kritisiert. In einem begleitenden Beitrag der Herausgeber werden die vier Argumente im Zusammenhang rekonstruiert, bewertet und durch neue Argumente unterstutzt. Der Band wird erganzt durch eine knappe Darstellung der embryonalen Fruhphase, ein naturwissenschaftlich- medizinisches Glossar, eine ausfuhrliche Bibliographie zur Embryonendebatte sowie durch ein Personen- und Sachregister.

One of the most challenging tasks facing clinicians today is the assessment of patients' capacities to consent to treatment. The protection of a patient's right to decide, as well as the protection of incompetent patients from the potential harm of the decisions they might make, rests largely on clinicians' abilities to judge patients' capacities to decide what treatment they will receive.

Confusing laws and complex ethical questions surrounding competence to consent to treatment have made the process of competence assessment intimidating for many clinicians. Health professionals - physicians, medical students nad residents, nurses, and mental health practitioners - have long needed a consice guidebook that translates the issue for practice. This is what this book accomplishes.

The aurthors describe the place of competence in the doctrine of informed consent and show how assessments of competence to consent to treatment can be structured by using a specific set of general medical and psychiatric treatment settings, explain how the assessment should be conducted, and offer a structured interview method to assist the task. They also explore the often difficult process of making the judgement about competence and desire what to do when patients' capacities are limited.

Informed consent is a central topic in contemporary biomedical ethics. Yet attempts to set defensible and feasible standards for consenting have led to persistent difficulties. In Rethinking Informed Consent in Bioethics, first published in 2007, Neil Manson and Onora O'Neill set debates about informed consent in medicine and research in a fresh light. They show why informed consent cannot be fully specific or fully explicit, and why more specific consent is not always ethically better. They argue that consent needs distinctive communicative transactions, by which other obligations, prohibitions, and rights can be waived or set aside in controlled and specific ways. Their book offers a coherent, wide-ranging and practical account of the role of consent in biomedicine which will be valuable to readers working in a range of areas in bioethics, medicine and law.

Michael Ryan (d. 1840) remains one of the most mysterious figures in the history of medical ethics, despite the fact that he was the only British physician during the middle years of the 19th century to write about ethics in a systematic way. Michael Ryan s Writings on Medical Ethics offers both an annotated reprint of his key ethical writings, and an extensive introductory essay that fills in many previously unknown details of Ryan s life, analyzes the significance of his ethical works, and places him within the historical trajectory of the field of medical ethics."

Cultivating Moral Character and Virtue in Professional Practice is a pioneering collection of essays focused on the place of character and virtue in professional practice. Professional practices usually have codes of conduct designed to ensure good conduct; but while such codes may be necessary and useful, they appear far from sufficient, since many recent public scandals in professional life seem to have been attributable to failures of personal moral character. This book argues that there is a pressing need to devote more attention in professional education to the cultivation or development of such moral qualities as integrity, courage, self-control, service and selflessness. Featuring contributions from distinguished leaders in the application of virtue ethics to professional practice, such as Sarah Banks, Ann Gallagher, Geoffrey Moore, Justin Oakley and Nancy Sherman, the volume looks beyond traditional professions to explore the ethical dimensions of a broad range of important professional practices. Inspired by a successful international and interdisciplinary conference on the topic, the book examines various ways of promoting moral character and virtue in professional life from the general ethical perspective of contemporary neo-Aristotelian virtue theory. The professional concerns of this work are of global significance and the book will be valuable reading for all working in contemporary professional practices. It will be of particular interest to academics, practitioners and postgraduate students in the fields of education, medicine, nursing, social work, business and commerce and military service.

Tentative estimates suggest that one in ten patients suffers from an adverse event in hospital. In Germany, approx. 1.8 million out of approx. 18 million inpatients suffer from adverse events; 50 percent of these cases are estimated to be avoidable. In the US, nearly 100,000 people die from the consequences of mistreatment. The intensive care units record 1.7 medical errors per patient and day. The most affected disciplines are the operative disciplines, particularly general surgery. Medical errors mainly occur when the indication for surgery is being made, during surgery and post-surgery. Suspicious oncological diagnostic results and post-operative complications are also often ignored. This book deals with complications and typical medical errors in surgery. It shows solutions and ways of dealing effectively with these errors and how to establish an efficient security management system.

This book assists health care providers to understand the specific interplay of the roles and relationships currently forming the debates in pediatric clinical ethics. It builds on the fact that, unlike adult medical ethics, pediatric ethics begins within an acutely and powerfully experienced dynamic of patient-family-state-physician relationship. The book provides a unique perspective as it interacts with established approaches as well as recent developments in pediatric ethics theory, and then explores these developments further through cases. The book first focuses on setting the stage by introducing a theoretical framework and elaborating how pediatric ethics differ from non-pediatric ethics. It approaches different theoretical frameworks in a critical manner drawing on their strengths and weaknesses. It helps the reader in developing an ability to engage in ethical reasoning and moral deliberation in order to focus on the wellbeing of the child as the main participant in the ethical deliberation, as well as to be able to identify the child's moral claims. The second section of the book focuses on the practical application of these theoretical frameworks and discusses specific areas pertaining to decision-making. These are: the critically ill child, new and enduring ethical controversies, and social justice at large, the latter of which includes looking at the child's place in society, access to healthcare, social determinants of health, and vaccinations. With the dynamic changes and challenges pediatric care faces across the globe, as well as the changing face of new technologies, no professional working in the field of pediatrics can afford not to take due note of this resource.

Inthis Brief, Daniel Sokol interprets'doing medical ethics' broadly to capture the application of ethical knowledge to a concrete situation, rather than just resolving a moral dilemma contained within a case.It instructs clinicians on how toidentify and analyse a clinical ethics case, andguides the reader inpublishing in general medical, specialist medical, and medical ethics journals, andthrough presenting on ethical issues at conferences. In addition to this, advice on how to teach medical ethics, and apply for research ethics approval, is included.

..".an admirably short and clear guide to doing medical ethics... I welcome this book and urge medical students and doctors of all grades to read it in paper, on-line or on your portable screen reader." Sir Richard Thompson, President of the Royal College of Physicians, UK

"Dr. Sokol has provided the field with a much needed, easy and comprehensive tool on 'doing' clinical ethics that all should have in their back pockets." Dr. Nneka Mokwunye, Director of Bioethics, Washington Hospital Center, Washington DC, USA

"This is a magnificent guide to clinical ethics and reflects the author's very well known and widely respected academic gravitas and real life experience in clinical ethics. It is a "must read" for anyone involved in the field." Mr. Vassilios Papalois, Consultant Surgeon and Chairman, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Clinical Ethics Committee, UK "

"This book encourages readers to reflect on the nature and values of health care practice through its challenging but accessible style. It will be a stimulating and thought-provoking read for anyone involved in day-to-day health care." - Professor Jane Wills, London South Bank University "[This book] offers frameworks and guidance that all health care workers will find stimulating and challenging and that all of them will benefit by considering." - Professor Linda Jones, Open University Why is thinking about values and ethics a crucial component of health care training and practice? How can we go about engaging in such thinking? Values, Ethics and Health Care responds to these essential questions. It examines key ethical frameworks and debates within the field of healthcare, locating them firmly in their social and occupational contexts. Guiding students through a range of dilemmas and difficulties encountered in health care practice with case studies and real-life examples, this lively text illustrates how to apply knowledge to professional practice and decision-making. Key features of the book: - Offers a critical and reflective understanding of health care ethics and values - Presents an interprofessional approach - Relates theory to 'everyday' ethics - Includes student-friendly features such as real-life examples, 'thinking about' points and links to further reading. The book will be essential reading for undergraduates taking modules in Values, Ethics and Professional Practice as part of health studies degree programmes. It will also be useful for postgraduates as well as practitioners in the field.

In the face of rapid advances in medical research and treatment, bioethics has become a serious social concern. Originally published in 1996 and later chosen by "World magazine as one of the top 100 books of the twentieth century, Gilbert Meilaender's "Bioethics covers a wide range of pressing bioethical issues and offers discerning guidance on how Christians ought to think about them.

In admirably clear language Meilaender discusses abortion, assisted reproduction, genetic advance and prenatal screening, care for the dying and euthanasia, human experimentation, and more. This new edition of his "Bioethics features updated information throughout, a fuller discussion of human embryos -- including stem cell research -- and a thorough rewrite of the chapter on organ donation.

Praise for the first edition

"The Christian who simply wants to get a reliable handle on [bioethics] will find nothing better than this splendid little book."
-- "First Things

"Concise and definite, this primer does its duty well."
-- "Booklist

"A clarion call for a more circumspect examination of current medical procedures."
-- "Library Journal

"An edifying, informative, and most welcome challenge to the superficial secularism that holds salvation to be scientific rather than divine."
-- "National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly

"Sets out in clear, accessible, and often eloquent language the core issues of bioethics from a Christian viewpoint."
-- "Christian Scholar's Review

"This pithy little book offers a vision and wisdom rarely found in volumes many times its size."
-- "Journal of Christian Nursing

Ethical Problems and Genetics Practice provides a rich, case-based account of the ethical issues arising in the genetics clinic and laboratory. By analysing a wide range of evocative and often arresting cases from practice, Michael Parker provides a compelling insight into the complex moral world of the contemporary genetics professional and the challenges they face in the care of patients and their families. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the ethical issues arising in everyday genetics practice. Ethical Problems and Genetics Practice is also a sustained engagement with the relationships between bioethics and social science. In proposing and exemplifying a new approach to bioethics, it makes a significant contribution to debates on methods and interdisciplinarity and will therefore also appeal to all those concerned with theoretical and methodological approaches to bioethics and social science.

How state welfare politics-not just concerns with "race improvement"-led to eugenic sterilization practices. Honorable Mention, 2018 Outstanding Book Award, The Disability History AssociationShortlist, 2019 Wallace K. Ferguson Prize, Canadian Historical Association Between 1907 and 1937, thirty-two states legalized the sterilization of more than 63,000 Americans. In Fixing the Poor, Molly Ladd-Taylor tells the story of these state-run eugenic sterilization programs. She focuses on one such program in Minnesota, where surgical sterilization was legally voluntary and administered within a progressive child welfare system. Tracing Minnesota's eugenics program from its conceptual origins in the 1880s to its official end in the 1970s, Ladd-Taylor argues that state sterilization policies reflected a wider variety of worldviews and political agendas than previously understood. She describes how, after 1920, people endorsed sterilization and its alternative, institutionalization, as the best way to aid dependent children without helping the "undeserving" poor. She also sheds new light on how the policy gained acceptance and why coerced sterilizations persisted long after eugenics lost its prestige. In Ladd-Taylor's provocative study, eugenic sterilization appears less like a deliberate effort to improve the gene pool than a complicated but sadly familiar tale of troubled families, fiscal and administrative politics, and deep-felt cultural attitudes about disability, dependency, sexuality, and gender. Drawing on institutional and medical records, court cases, newspapers, and professional journals, Ladd-Taylor reconstructs the tragic stories of the welfare-dependent, sexually delinquent, and disabled people who were labeled "feebleminded" and targeted for sterilization. She chronicles the routine operation of Minnesota's three-step policy of eugenic commitment, institutionalization, and sterilization in the 1920s and 1930s and shows how surgery became the "price of freedom" from a state institution. Combining innovative political analysis with a compelling social history of those caught up in Minnesota's welfare system, Fixing the Poor is a powerful reinterpretation of eugenic sterilization.

When bioethicists debate the use of technologies like surgery and pharmacology to shape our selves, they are, ultimately, debating what it means for human beings to flourish. They are debating what makes animals like us truly happy, and whether the technologies at issue will bring us closer to or farther from such happiness. The positions that participants adopt in debates regarding such ancient and fundamental questions are often polarized, and cannot help but be deeply personal. It is no wonder that the debates are sometimes acrimonious. How, then, should critics of and enthusiasts about technological self-transformation move forward? Based on his experience at the oldest free-standing bioethics research institute in the world, Erik Parens proposes a habit of thinking, which he calls "binocular." As our brains integrate slightly different information from our two eyes to achieve depth of visual perception, we need to try to integrate greatly different insights on the two sides of the debates about technologically shaping our selves-if depth of intellectual understanding is what we are after. Binocular thinking lets us benefit from the insights that are visible from the stance of the enthusiast, who emphasizes that using technology to creatively transform our selves will make us happier, and to benefit from the insights that are visible from the stance of the critic, who emphasizes that learning to let our selves be will make us happier. Parens observes that in debates as personal as these, we all-critics and enthusiasts alike-give reasons that we are partial to. In the throes of our passion to make our case, we exaggerate our insights and all-too-often fall into the conceptual traps that language sets for us. Foolishly, we make conceptual choices that no one who truly wanted understanding would accept: Are technologies value-free or value-laden? Are human beings by nature creators or creatures? Is disability a medical or a social phenomenon? Indeed, are we free or determined? Parens explains how participating in these debates for two decades helped him articulate the binocular habit of thinking that is better at benefiting from the insights in both poles of those binaries than was the habit of thinking he originally brought to the debates. Finally, Parens celebrates that bioethics doesn't aspire only to deeper thinking, but also to better acting. He embraces not only the intellectual aspiration to think deeply about meaning questions that don't admit of final answers, but also the ethical demand to give clear answers to practical questions. To show how to respect both that aspiration and that demand, the book culminates in the description of a process of truly informed consent, in the context of one specific form of using technology to shape our selves: families making decisions about appearance normalizing surgeries for children with atypical bodies.

This interdisciplinary collection of essays demonstrates how the ethical and political problems we are confronted with today have come to focus largely on life. The contributors to this volume define and assess the specific meaning of life itself. It is only by doing so that we can understand why life has become an all-encompassing problem, why all questions, especially ethical and political, have become vital questions. We have reached a moment in history where every distinction and opposition is no longer in relation to life, but within it, and where life is at once a theoretical and practical problem. This book throws light on this nexus of problems at the heart of contemporary debates in bioethics and biopolitics. It helps us understand why and how life is understood, valued, cared for and framed today. Taking a genuinely transdisciplinary approach, these essays demonstrate how life is a multifaceted problem and how diverse the origins, foundations and also consequences of bioethics and biopolitics therefore are.

McConnell presents the unusual and distinctive argument that inalienable rights differ from other types of rights in that, rather than restraining the behaviour of others, inalienable rights seem to put limits on the possessors themselves, because even the possessor's consent does not justify others in encroaching on them. He offers a full account of what it means for a right to be inalienable, distinguishing them from other kinds of rights in the contexts of moral and political issues in medicine and law: for example, the right to life, the right of conscience, and, in particular, the right of informed consent. McConnell's book is intended as a distinctive conception and persuasive defence of inalienable rights, which ties into current discussions of informed consent. It should appeal to applied ethicists and philosophers of law among others.

This book provides healthcare and legal practitioners and students at all levels with the theory and practical application necessary to understand and apply bioethics, human rights and health law to their present and future work. The topics of bioethics, human rights and health law are part of the core curriculum for all students in Health Sciences in South Africa. Bioethics, Health Law and Human Rights: Principles and Practice, therefore, comes at no better time.

As the book is a guide, it does not deal exhaustively with the topics discussed. Instead, it aims to give healthcare and legal practitioners some general guidelines which it is hoped will be of practical use to them.

The proliferation of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) among women and children represents one of the gravest health issues confronting contemporary society. Women, most of childbearing age, now constitute 11 percent of all cases, and the U.S. Public Health Service has projected over 3,000 cases of pediatric AIDS by the end of 1991. In the face of these sobering statistics, experts have been called upon to grapple with a difficult, compelling question: under what conditions, if any, should HIV testing of women and children be required? Also at issue are the surreptitious testing for HIV antibodies as part of routine prenatal and neonatal examinations, and whether such testing should be performed on all women and infants, or only those who belong to groups judged at "high risk." In this unique contribution to the debate about HIV screening and testing, Ruth Faden, Madison Powers, and Gail Geller have assembled perspectives from experts in public health, medicine, law, and ethics. Their wide-ranging treatment examines the history of prenatal and neonatal screening programs; informed consent; legal issues and confidentiality; reproductive decision-making; and numerous other aspects of HIV testing. Alternative policy options for both now and the future are discussed in detail. This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of these pressing medical, public health, legal, ethical, and social issues, and is essential reading for AIDS researchers and clinicians, public health specialists, ethicists, health policymakers and analysts, obstetricians, and pediatricians.

Deficiencies and shortfalls in the supply of human organs for transplantation and human tissue for research generate policy dilemmas across the world and have often given rise to major and deleterious controversies, such as those relating to organ and tissue retention practices following post-mortem examination. They also create an environment in which illegitimate commercial activities flourish. At the same time, patients are denied the therapy they desperately require and researchers are impeded from carrying out vital work into the causes of, and efficacious treatments for, major illnesses and diseases. David Price sets out a clear and integrated legal and policy framework which emanates from the tissue source but protects the interests of donors and relevant professionals through tailored property entitlements, but without presupposing rights to trade in 'original' materials.

Ethical dilemmas are not new in the area of health care and policy making, but in recent years, their frequency and diversity have grown considerably. All health professionals now have to consider the ethical implications of an increasing array of treatments, interventions and health promotion activities on an almost daily basis. This goes hand in hand with increasing medical knowledge, and the growth of new and innovative medical technologies and pharmaceuticals. In addition, the same technology and knowledge is increasing professional and public awareness of new potential public health threats (e.g. pandemic influenza). At the level of public policy, concerns over the rising costs of health care have led to a more explicit focus on 'health promotion', and the surveillance of both 'patients' and the so-called 'worried well'. Health professionals and policy makers also have to consider the implications of managing these risks, for example restricting individual liberty through enforced quarantine (in the wake of SARS and more recently swine flu) and the more general distribution of harms and benefits. Balancing the rights and responsibilities of individuals and wider populations is becoming more complex and problematic. This book will play a key role in opening out a discussion of public health ethics. It examines the principles and values that support an ethical approach to public health practice and provides examples of some of the complex areas which those practising, analysing and planning the health of populations have to navigate. It will therefore be essential reading for current practitioners, those involved in public health research and a valuable aid for anyone interested in examining the tensions within and the development of public health.

This is a lucid, readable discussion of ethical questions in health care as they arise on the business or organizationl level: an effort to spell out an ethical perspective for healthcare organizations. It will be of use to students in health services management programmes, health care professionals, healthcare administrators, and members of healthcare ethics committees.

Eating disorders (EDs) have become a social epidemic in the developed world. This book addresses the close links between EDs and exercise, helping us to understand why people with EDs often exercise to excessive and potentially harmful levels. This is also the first book to examine this issue from an ethical and legal perspective, identifying the rights and responsibilities of people with EDs, their families and the fitness professionals and clinicians that work with them.

The book offers an accessible account of EDs and closely examines the concept of addiction. Drawing on a wide range of medical, psychological, physiological, sociological and philosophical sources, the book examines the benefits and risks of exercise for the ED population, explores the links between EDs and other abuses of the body in the sports environment and addresses the issue of athletes with disordered eating behaviour. Importantly, the book also surveys current legislation and professional codes of conduct that guide the work of fitness professionals and clinicians in this area and presents a clear and thorough set of case histories and action points to help professionals better understand, and care for, their clients with EDs.

Exercise and Eating Disorders is important reading for students of applied ethics, medical ethics and the ethics of sport, as well as for fitness professionals, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, sports coaches and sport and exercise scientists looking to improve their understanding of this important issue.

This second edition addresses a variety of ethical issues that arise in the care of oncology patients. Many volumes have been written on medical ethics in the past 30 years. However, few have focused on ethical issues specific to the care of cancer patients. This book brings together such a focused examination. The contributors include clinicians, (doctors, nurses, and social workers), ethicists, medical humanists, medical educators, and a cancer survivor. The issues raised have direct relevance to the care of oncology patients in treatment as well as research settings. The chapters address issues that are central to contemporary medical practice and medical ethics inquiry.

Ethical Issues in Cancer Patient Care, Second Edition will have direct importance for practicing physicians, nurses and others caring for cancer patients. In addition, medical students, medical educators and ethicists will find this book of interest.

In the warped world of prescription drug pricing, generic drugs can cost more than branded ones, old drugs can be relaunched at astronomical prices, and low-cost options are shut out of the market. In Drugs, Money and Secret Handshakes, Robin Feldman shines a light into the dark corners of the pharmaceutical industry to expose a web of shadowy deals in which higher-priced drugs receive favorable treatment and patients are channeled toward the most expensive medicines. At the center of this web are the highly secretive middle players who establish coverage levels for patients and negotiate with drug companies. By offering lucrative payments to these middle players (as well as to doctors and hospitals), drug companies ensure that inexpensive drugs never gain traction. This system of perverse incentives has delivered the kind of exorbitant drug prices - and profits - that everyone loves except for those who pay the bills.