Good Medical Practice: Professionalism, Ethics and Law brings together information that is central to the professional, ethical and legal requirements of being a doctor. It covers a core curriculum for medical students, doctors in training and international medical graduates preparing for the Australian Medical Council examinations. A useful guide for busy doctors, giving sound advice for issues that arise in practice, ensuring that all approaches meet professional standards. Effective and compassionate practice depends equally upon good communication skills, an empathetic attitude, truthfulness, self-reflection and an awareness of the responsibilities arising under relevant laws. Good Medical Practice encapsulates these attributes and includes practice management, inter-professional relationships, sexual misconduct, complaints processes, the Australian health care system and doctors' health within its broad and comprehensive purview. Written by specialist practitioners with vast teaching experience, this is a unique, timely and accessible text that reinforces a contemporary focus on professionalism in medical practice.

Should we make people healthier, smarter, and longer-lived if genetic and medical advances enable us to do so? Matti H yry asks this question in the context of genetic testing and selection, cloning and stem cell research, gene therapies and enhancements. The ethical questions explored include parental responsibility, the use of people as means, the role of hope and fear in risk assessment, and the dignity and meaning of life. Taking as a starting point the arguments presented by Jonathan Glover, John Harris, Ronald M. Green, J rgen Habermas, Michael J. Sandel, and Leon R. Kass, who defend a particular normative view as the only rational or moral answer, Matti H yry argues that many coherent rationalities and moralities exist in the field, and that to claim otherwise is mistaken.

This book introduces the reader to the basic skills necessary for good communication between doctors (and other health professionals) and patients. The practical importance of such skills is outlined, making the doctor much more effective in all fields of medicine. This is not a book for the specialist reader, but aimed at all those who need to talk with patients.

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.

This work provides a perspective on the importance of the ethical and legal dimensions of nursing in South Africa. Common ethical theories, principles and decision-making models are outlined, and human rights and health care within the South African context is discussed. Attention is given to the ethical issues in nursing practice as it relates to specific life spans (for example, infants, adolescence, adulthood and old age). Perspectives on moral dilemmas include a discussion on the rights of patients. Transcultural issues in nursing practice highlight cultural differences and religions as cultural forces in transcultural nursing.

Every one of us will die, and the processes we go through will be our own unique to our own experiences and life stories. It is reasonable to reflect on what kinds of dying processes may be better or worse for us as we move toward our end. Such consideration, however, can raise troubling ethical concerns for patients, families, and healthcare providers. Even after forty years of concerted focus on biomedical ethics, these moral concerns persist in the care of lethally impaired, terminally ill, and inured patients. End-of-Life Care and Pragmatic Decision Making provides a pragmatic philosophical framework based on a radically empirical attitude toward life and death. D. Micah Hester takes seriously the complexities of experiences and argues that when making end-of-life decisions healthcare providers ought to pay close attention to the narratives of patients and the communities they inhabit so that their dying processes embody their life stories. He discusses three types of end-of-life patient populations adults with decision-making capacity, adult without capacity, and children (with a strong focus on infants) to show the implications of pragmatic empiricism and the scope of decision making at the end of life for different types of patients.

This volume offers a theoretical and practical overview of the ethics of pediatric medicine. It serves as a fundamental handbook and resource for pediatricians, nurses, residents in training, graduate students, and practitioners of ethics and healthcare policy. Written by a team of leading experts, Pediatric Bioethics addresses those difficult ethical questions concerning the clinical and academic practice of pediatrics, including an approach to recognizing boundaries when confronted with issues such as end of life care, life-sustaining treatment, extreme prematurity, pharmacotherapy, and research. Thorny topics such as what constitutes best interests, personhood, or distributive justice and public health concerns such as immunization and newborn genetic screening are also addressed.

A recent Harris Poll revealed some disturbing aspects of the current state of health care provision for women and children. The poll dealt with issues as diverse as clincial examinations and communication between women and their doctors. Such issues, long ignored or under-appreciated by medical researchers, clinicians, and public policy makers, are increasingly receiving attention, not only from public health experts, but also from politicians, pressure groups, and the media. Reproductive Health Care for Women and Babies addresses all the medical and societal aspects of health care that go to form public health policy for women. The editors have assembled an international team of contributors who provide the reader with a truly global picture of the issues involved. These features combine to provide a much better understanding of the health care needs of women. Doctors will be able to take a broader view of their role, beyond the traditional one of diagnosis and treatment, and allow to communicate more effectively their individual and collective views. Such a reorientation is essential if physicians are to assume their proper role at the centre of the formation of public health policy. For anybody involved in providing health care for women and children this book is essential reading.

Learning medical professionalism is a challenging, evolving, and life-long endeavor. Professionalism in Medicine: A Case-Based Guide for Medical Students helps begin this process by engaging students and their teachers in reflection on cases that resonate with the experiences of life in medicine. Through the book's seventy-two cases, commentaries, videos, and literature-based reviews, students explore the many challenging areas of medical professionalism. Readers will appreciate the provocative professionalism dilemmas encountered by students from the pre-clinical years and clinical rotations and by physicians of various specialties. Each case is followed by two commentaries by writers who are involved in health care decisions related to that case, and who represent a wide variety of perspectives. Authors represent 46 medical schools and other institutions and include physicians, medical students, medical ethicists, lawyers, psychologists, nurses, social workers, pharmacists, health care administrators, and patient advocates.

This volume maps the areas of ethical concern in the debate regarding the governance of genetic information, and suggests alternative ethical frameworks and models of regulation in order to inform its restructuring. Genetic governance is at the heart of medical and scientific developments, and is connected to global exploitation, issues of commodification, commercialisation and ownership, the concepts of property and intellectual property and concerns about individual and communal identity. Thus the decisions that are made in the next few years about appropriate models of genetic governance will have knock-on effects for other areas of governance. In short the final answer to 'Who Decides?' in the context of genetic governance will fundamentally shape the ethical constructs of individuals and their networks and relationships in the public sphere.

Die dynamische Entwicklung der Lebenswissenschaften unterwirft die menschliche Natur in zunehmendem Mass der Moeglichkeit technischer Intervention. Dieser Prozess erreicht mit der Option verbessernder Eingriffe in die genetische Ausstattung des Menschen eine neue Dimension, die ethische, politische und zunehmend auch rechtliche Debatten ausgeloest hat, in denen tiefgreifende normative Dissense sichtbar werden. Die Autorin eroertert zunachst die Zulassigkeit von Massnahmen des genetischen Enhancements anhand des geltenden deutschen Rechts und analysiert kunftige gesetzliche Regelungsoptionen. Sodann wirft sie die Frage auf, ob die Begrundung einer Unverfugbarkeit der Naturlichkeit des menschlichen Genoms mit Argumenten, die sich im Rahmen einer sakularen, religioes neutralen Rechtsordnung als rechtliche formulieren lassen, moeglich ist oder ob die Vorstellung eines schlechthin unverfugbaren naturlichen Substrats des Menschen nur von einem Staat um- und durchgesetzt werden kann, der, wider dem von der Theorie des politischen Liberalismus (John Rawls) postulierten Erfordernis der public justification, nicht auf jede religioes-transzendente Verankerung des Rechts verzichtet.

Children in precarious health present particular problems for healthcare professionals because of their intimate relation to their family, and because of the family's need to provide major long-term source of support and to be actively involved in the decisions about their children's care. This collection of cases and commentaries in pediatrics highlights the difficult ethical dilemmas that can arise during high-tech hospital care of children in precarious circumstances. It serves as a teaching tool for clinical ethics and as an introduction for medical students and residents. Clinical cases are described in detail by the physicians involved, who focus on the ethical issues arising during treatment. Each case is then commented on in detail by a philosopher or other bioethicist. It thus serves well as an introduction to contemporary clinical bioethics, but with a firm grounding in the practicalities of real-life pediatric care in the hospital setting.

In this novel examination of the issue of abortion, the authors offer a primer in the biological aspects of fetal development and its impact on the abortion controversy. Although purely scientific study cannot offer a universal solution to the issue of abortion, nor can a purely political or moral response be fully informed without the benefit of the latest scientific knowledge.

Reviewing the latest developments in molecular biology, evolutionary biology, embryology, and neurophysiology, the authors reveal a surprising agreement of scientific opinion on when 'humanness' begins: with the development of a highly developed cerebral cortex. It is on this issue that the authors focus with sensitivity to the myriad of ethical and religious arguments that surround it.

The current health care crisis in the United States has prompted wide interest in how medical systems around the world regulate themselves. This comprehensive book considers whether or not Britain's General Medical Council of professional conduct jurisdiction acts fairly and justly when dealing both with doctors whose conduct it controls, and members of the public whose interests it was established to protect. By looking at the legal history of the Council since its inception to the present, it is possible to see how the system of medical discipline in Britain developed, to reveal its present anomalies and problems, and to see how best to improve the system, if, indeed, such a system is worthy of preservation. Questions such as the role of lay members on the Council, the use of lawyers and Legal Assessors in hearings, how medical issues are resolved and how standards of conduct are set for the profession, are all considered. Over 2,000 disciplinary cases are then surveyed in terms of the type of allegations made, what sort of doctors are involved, and how they are dealt with. Detailed suggestions are finally made for improving the system.

The book offers an introduction to the moral concepts and value of health care. It is written by a moral philosopher, a doctor and a nurse and contains questions, cases and exercises which are suitable for medical, nursing and all students and commentators on health care. Moral dilemmas include consent, confidentiality, the giving or withholding of information, and the economics of health care. The issues of artificial reproduction, terminal care and the research and testing of drugs are addressed.

Catholic health care is about ethics but also "ethos" - not only what we shouldn't do but a vision for what we should do with love. The issues it faces don't just concern academic bioethicists - they concern every faithful Catholic doctor, nurse, practitioner, and even patient. Modern medical practitioners on the ground, day-in, day-out, wrestling with medical moral matters, witnessing what is happening in American medicine today, while also striving to witness to their Catholic faith in living out their medical vocation - these are the primary authors of this unique book, and these are the readers it hopes to serve. Catholic Witness in Health Care integrates the theoretical presentation of Catholic medical ethics with real life practice. It begins with fundamental elements of Catholic care, touching upon Scripture, moral philosophy, theology, Christian anthropology, and pastoral care. The second part features Catholic clinicians illuminating authentic Catholic medical care in their various medical disciplines: gynecology and reproductive medicine, fertility, pediatrics, geriatrics, critical care, surgery, rehabilitation, psychology, and pharmacy. Part three offers unique perspectives concerning medical education, research, and practice, with an eye toward creating a cultural shift to an authentically Catholic medical ethos. Readers of this book will learn essential elements upon which the ethics of Catholic medical practice is founded and gain insights into practicing medicine and caring for others in an authentically Catholic way.

A daughter gets tested to see if she's a match to donate a kidney to her father. The test reveals that she is not the man's biological daughter. Should the doctor tell the father? Or the daughter? A deaf couple prefers a deaf baby. Should they be allowed to use medical technology to ensure they have a child who can't hear? Who should get custody of an embryo created through IVF when a couple divorces? Or, when you or a loved one is on life support, Who says you're dead? In short, engaging scenarios, Dr. Appel takes on hot-button issues that many of us will confront: genetic screening, sexuality, privacy, doctor-patient confidentiality. He unpacks each hypothetical with a brief reflection drawing from science, philosophy, and history, explaining how others have approached these controversies in real-world cases. Who Says You're Dead? is designed to defy easy answers and to stimulate thought and even debate among professionals and armchair ethicists alike.

The question of whether abortion should or should not be permitted, and under what circumstances, is among the most difficult and sometimes anguished decisions for contemporary men and women. How we feel about this issue, and what actions we take, help to define our image of who we are as social beings. In the midst of the surrounding political, ethical, and religious debate, people everywhere are once again examining their conscience and their beliefs, and turning to unutilized sources of information as they seek to come to terms with this contentious issue. And as emotions run high, it is helpful to step back from the highly charged arena to reconsider the underlying scientific facts about human development.
In The Facts of Life, Harold Morowitz and James Trefil, two distinguished scientists and science writers, examine what modern biology can contribute to our understanding of this debate. Sensitive to the myriad ethical and religious arguments beyond the realm of science that swirl around abortion, the authors focus on one crucial question--when does a fetus acquire "humanness," that quality that sets us apart from all other living things. From the viewpoint of science, they argue, "humanness" begins with the possession of a highly developed cerebral cortex. While humans are linked via cell structure and cell chemistry with all life on our planet--from monkeys to fruit flies to pumpkins--it is the human brain structure which makes us who we are. Reviewing the latest advances in molecular biology, evolutionary biology, embryology, neurophysiology, and neonatology--fields that all bear on this question--the authors reveal a surprising consensus of scientific opinion on when humanness begins.
A lucid primer on the biological aspects of the abortion issue, The Facts of Life is also a fascinating inquiry, across various scientific disciplines, into what makes us uniquely human. Anyone who struggles with the issue of abortion will be grateful to find a work that moves this heated issue from the intensely emotional area it has occupied to the calmer domain of science.

How can Christian ethics make a significant contribution to health care ethics in today's Western, pluralistic society? Robin Gill examines the 'moral gaps' in secular accounts of health care ethics and the tensions within specifically theological accounts. He explores the healing stories in the Synoptic Gospels, identifying four core virtues present within them - compassion, care, faith and humility - that might bring greater depth to a purely secular interpretation of health care ethics. Each of these virtues is examined in turn, using a range of topical issues including health care rationing, genetics, HIV/AIDS, withholding/withdrawing nutrition from PVS patients, and the empirical evidence which suggests a connection between religion and health. Professor Gill also argues that these four virtues are shared by other major religious and humanistic traditions and that, together with secular principles, they can enrich health care ethics even in a pluralistic society.

This insightful study examines the deeply personal and heart-wrenching tensions among financial considerations, emotional attachments, and moral arguments that motivate end-of-life decisions. America's health care system was built on the principle that life should be prolonged whenever possible, regardless of the costs. This commitment has often meant that patients spend their last days suffering from heroic interventions that extend their life by only weeks or months. Increasingly, this approach to end-of-life care is coming under scrutiny, from a moral as well as a financial perspective. Sociologist Roi Livne documents the rise and effectiveness of hospice and palliative care, and growing acceptance of the idea that a life consumed by suffering may not be worth living. Values at the End of Life combines an in-depth historical analysis with an extensive study conducted in three hospitals, where Livne observed terminally ill patients, their families, and caregivers negotiating treatment. Livne describes the ambivalent, conflicted moments when people articulate and act on their moral intuitions about dying. Interviews with medical staff allowed him to isolate the strategies clinicians use to help families understand their options. As Livne discovered, clinicians are advancing the idea that invasive, expensive hospital procedures often compound a patient's suffering. Affluent, educated families were more readily persuaded by this moral calculus than those of less means. Once defiant of death-or even in denial-many American families and professionals in the health care system are beginning to embrace the notion that less treatment in the end may be better treatment.

Metastatic cancer and costly precision medicines generate extremely complex problems of health care justice. Targeted cancer therapies yield only very marginal gains in life expectancy for most patients at very great cost, thereby threatening the just allocation of limited health care resources. Philosophers have high hopes for the utility of their theories of justice in addressing the challenges of resource allocation; however, none of these theories can address adequately the "wicked" ethical problems that have resulted from these targeted therapies. What we need instead, bioethicist Leonard M. Fleck argues, is a political conception of health care justice, following Rawls, and a fair and inclusive process of rational democratic deliberation governed by public reason. His account makes the basic assumption that we have only limited health care resources to meet unlimited health care needs generated by emerging medical technologies. The primary ethical and political virtue of rational democratic deliberation is that it allows citizens to fashion autonomously shared understandings of how to fairly address the complex problems of health care justice generated by precision medicine. While ideally just outcomes are a moral and political impossibility, "wicked" problems can metastasize if rationing decisions are made invisibly-in ways effectively hidden from those affected by those decisions. As Fleck demonstrates, a fair and inclusive process of democratic deliberation could make these "wicked" problems visible, and subject, to public reason.

This timely book analyses and evaluates ethical and social implications of recent developments in reporting surgeon performance. It contains chapters by leading international specialists in philosophy, bioethics, epidemiology, medical administration, surgery, and law, demonstrating the diversity and complexity of debates about this topic, raising considerations of patient autonomy, accountability, justice, and the quality and safety of medical services. Performance information on individual cardiac surgeons has been publicly available in parts of the US for over a decade. Survival rates for individual cardiac surgeons in the UK have recently been released to the public. This trend is being driven by various factors, including concerns about accountability, patients??? rights, quality and safety of medical care, and the need to avoid scandals in medical care. This trend is likely to extend to other countries, to other clinicians, and to professions beyond health care, making this text an essential addition to the literature available.

How does the market affect and redefine healthcare? The marketisation of Western healthcare systems has now proceeded well into its fourth decade. But the nature and meaning of the phenomenon has become increasingly opaque amidst changing discourses, policies and institutional structures. Moreover, ethics has become focussed on dealing with individual, clinical decisions and neglectful of the political economy which shapes healthcare. This interdisciplinary volume approaches marketisation by exploring the debates underlying the contemporary situation and by introducing reconstructive and reparative discourses. The first part explores contrary interpretations of 'marketisation' on a systemic level, with a view to organisational-ethical formation and the role of healthcare ethics. The second part presents the marketisation of healthcare at the level of policy-making, discusses the ethical ramifications of specific marketisation measures and considers the possibility of reconciling market forces with a covenantal understanding of healthcare. The final part examines healthcare workers' and ethicists' personal moral standing in a marketised healthcare system, with a view to preserving and enriching virtue, empathy and compassion. Chapter 4 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138735736_oachapter4.pdf Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138735736_oachapter7.pdf

In 1985, philosopher Samuel Gorovitz spent seven weeks at Boston's Beth Israel, one of the nation's premier teaching hospitals, where he was given free run as "Authorized Snoop and Irritant-at-Large." In Drawing the Line, he provides an intense, disturbing, and insightful account of his observations during those seven weeks.
Gorovitz guides us through an operating room and intensive care units, and takes us to meetings where surgeons discuss the mishaps of the preceding week, where internists map out their approaches to troublesome cases, where the administration discusses competition in the health care market. He follows as residents walk the ragged edge of physical exhaustion, as experienced physicians wrestle with the uncertainties of their demanding profession, as nurses struggle to care for perpetually declining patients. Most important, he examines the ethical questions that permeate their lives--deeply troubling questions such as who should be making life and death decisions--and how should they be made? How should scarce medical resources be allocated? What rules should govern the use of fetal tissue in research and treatment? Where should we draw the line, and how?
When Samuel Gorovitz published Doctors' Dilemmas, a previous look at medical ethics, it was hailed by Norman Cousins as "stimulating and valuable...the product of a beautifully formed (and informed) mind." Studs Terkel called it "quite remarkable...a very exciting book indeed." In Drawing theLine, Gorovitz offers an unusual look at contemporary health care, combining a moving, hard-hitting glimpse of daily reality at a major hospital with the thoughtful, provocative reflections of a highly respected philosopher.

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.