What does it mean to be a "just" and "caring" society when we have only limited resources to meet unlimited health care needs? Do we believe that all lives are of equal value? Is human life priceless? Should a "just" and "caring" society refuse to put limits on health care spending? In Just Caring, Leonard Fleck reflects on the central moral and political challenges of health reform today. He cites the millions of Americans who go without health insurance, thousands of whom die prematurely, unable to afford the health care needed to save their lives. Fleck considers these deaths as contrary to our deepest social values, and makes a case for the necessity of health care rationing decisions. The core argument of this book is that no one has a moral right to impose rationing decisions on others if they are unwilling to impose those same rationing decisions on themselves in the same medical circumstances. Fleck argues we can make health care rationing fair, in ways that are mutually respectful, if we engage in honest rational democratic deliberation. Such civic engagement is rare in our society, but the alternative is endless destructive social controversy that is neither just nor caring.

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Currently, there is a critical need to integrate diversity and inclusion into health professions curricula and to diversify educators' approaches to teaching. The COVID-19 pandemic has most recently highlighted the systemic barriers that exist for our most vulnerable patients. To address these inequities, it is important to promote diversity and inclusion in thought, practice, and curricular content. Social and cultural experiences uniquely influence the learning experience, so a plurality of perspectives should be represented in educational material and seen in the classroom. Cases on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Health Professions Educator serves as a tool to enhance the structure and competencies of learners in health professions. This case book engages both learners and educators in health professions in robust discussions that serve to enhance awareness and knowledge around these issues with the expectation that knowledge will translate into practices that eventually reduce health inequities. Covering topics such as ableism, barriers to healthcare access, and mental health stigma, this case book is an indispensable resource for health professionals, educators and students in the health professions, hospital administrators, medical librarians, sociologists, government officials, researchers, and academicians.

Improving quality of life is one of the main advantages of integrating new innovations into medicine. New technologies are revolutionizing medicine and opening new opportunities for patients, doctors, clinics, and companies. The patient's well-being is monitored autonomously by smartphones, digital medical records simplify everyday clinical work, virtual reality is used for treatment, and robots help in the operating room. The new technological possibilities in healthcare not only change patients' lives, but also the work of doctors, clinics, and companies. In the fields of healthcare and medicine, new technologies can be used for patient communication, health monitoring, or for the treatment of patients, and modern research is devoted to advancing and understanding these technologies. Ethical Implications of Reshaping Healthcare With Emerging Technologies includes the most up-to-date research in the fields of healthcare and medicine worldwide, provides answers to the forms of treatment that are already possible in medicine, and illuminates the future possibilities that are already being researched. In addition, today's knowledge is translated and shown in how new technologies such as autonomous VR-system can be used for pain reduction as part of a treatment. Finally, this book examines the ethical guidelines in healthcare and medicine that are associated with the rapid development of these technologies. This book will be useful for the healthcare industry, hospital administration, the health insurance industry, doctors, healthcare workers, business professionals, IT specialists, medical software designers, scientists, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students looking for the latest information on the use of emerging technologies in healthcare settings.

From rethinking feminist archives, to inserting postpornography in academia, to approaching sex toys from a transpositive perspective, to dismantling the foundations of techno-capitalism, the areas of inquiry in this book are lenses through which to explore the relationships between genders, bodies and technologies. All the various chapters work to reimagine the body as a hybrid, malleable and subversive source of potentiality. These essays offer readers road maps for unimagined and uncharted social scapes: the relationship between bodies-technologies-genders means working within a space of monstrosity. Through this embodied discomfort the book questions existing techno-social norms, and imagines tranfeminist futures. Contributors are: Carlotta Cossutta, Valentina Greco, Arianna Mainardi, Stefania Voli, Lucia Egana Rojas, Ludovico Virtu, Angela Balzano, Obiezione Respinta, Elisa Virgili, Rachele Borghi, and Diego Marchante "Genderhacker".

The Electronic Health Record: Ethical Considerations analyses the ethical issues that surround the construction, maintenance, storage, use, linkage, manipulation and communication of electronic health records. Its purpose is to provide ethical guidance to formulate and implement policies at the local, national and global level, and to provide the basis for global certification in health information ethics. Electronic health records (EHRs) are increasingly replacing the use of paper-based records in the delivery of health care. They are integral to providing eHealth, telehealth, mHealth and pHealth - all of which are increasingly replacing direct and personal physician-patient interaction - as well as in the developing field of artificial intelligence and expert systems in health care. The book supplements considerations that are raised by national and international regulations dealing with electronic records in general, for instance the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union. This book is a valuable resource for physicians, health care administrators and workers, IT service providers and several members of biomedical field who are interested in learning more about how to ethically manage health data.

Several presidents have created bioethics councils to advise their administrations on the importance, meaning and possible implementation or regulation of rapidly developing biomedical technologies. From 2001 to 2005, the President's Council on Bioethics, created by President George W. Bush, was under the leadership of Leon Kass. The Kass Council, as it was known, undertook what Adam Briggle describes as a more rich understanding of its task than that of previous councils. The council sought to understand what it means to advance human flourishing at the intersection of philosophy, politics, science, and technology within a democratic society. Briggle's survey of the history of U.S. public bioethics and advisory bioethics commissions, followed by an analysis of what constitutes a "rich" bioethics, forms the first part of the book. The second part treats the Kass Council as a case study of a federal institution that offered public, ethical advice within a highly polarized context, with the attendant charges of inappropriate politicization and policy irrelevance. The conclusion synthesizes the author's findings into a story about the possible relationships between philosophy and policy making. A Rich Bioethics: Public Policy, Biotechnology, and the Kass Council will attract students and scholars in bioethics and the fields of science, technology, and society, as well as those interested in the ethical and political dilemmas raised by modern science.

Hospital intensive care units have changed when and how we die-and not always for the better. The ICU is a new world, one in which once-fatal diseases can be cured and medical treatments greatly enhance our chances of full recovery. But, paradoxically, these places of physical healing can exact a terrible toll, and by focusing on technology rather than humanity, they too often rob the dying of their dignity. By some accounts, the expensive medical treatments provided in ICUs also threaten to bankrupt the nation. In an attempt to give patients a voice in the ICU when they might not otherwise have one, the living will was introduced in 1969, in response to several notorious cases. These documents were meant to keep physicians from ignoring patients' and families' wishes in stressful situations. Unfortunately, despite their aspirations, living wills contain static statements about hypothetical preferences that rarely apply in practice. And they created a process that isn't faithful to who we are as human beings. Further confusing difficult and painful situations, living wills leave patients with the impression that actual communication with their physicians has taken place, when in fact their deepest desires and values remain unaddressed. In this provocative and empathetic book, medical researcher and ICU physician Samuel Morris Brown uses stories from his clinical practice to outline a new way of thinking about life-threatening illness. Brown's approach acknowledges the conflicting emotions we have when talking about the possibility of death and proposes strategies by which patients, their families, and medical practitioners can better address human needs before, during, and after serious illness. Arguing that any solution to the problems of the inhumanity of intensive care must take advantage of new research on the ways human beings process information and make choices, Brown imagines a truly humane ICU. His manifesto for reform advocates wholeness and healing for people facing life-threatening illness.

The concept of smart drug delivery vehicles involves designing and preparing a nanostructure (or microstructure) that can be loaded with a cargo, this can be a therapeutic drug, a contrast agent for imaging, or a nucleic acid for gene therapy. The nanocarrier serves to protect the cargo from degradation by enzymes in the body, to enhance the solubility of insoluble drugs, to extend the circulation half-life, and to enhance its penetration and accumulation at the target site. Importantly, smart nanocarriers can be designed to be responsive to a specific stimulus, so that the cargo is only released or activated when desired. In this volume we cover smart nanocarriers that respond to externally applied stimuli that usually involve application of physical energy. This physical energy can be applied from outside the body and can either cause cargo release, or can activate the nanostructure to be cytotoxic, or both. The stimuli covered include light of various wavelengths (ultraviolet, visible or infrared), temperature (increased or decreased), magnetic fields (used to externally manipulate nanostructures and to activate them), ultrasound, and electrical and mechanical forces. Finally we discuss the issue of nanotoxicology and the future scope of the field.

In the last few years, several "bottom-up" and "top-down" synthesis routes have been developed to produce tailored hybrid nanoparticles (HNPs). This book provides a new insight into one of the most promising "bottom-up" techniques, based on a practical magnetron-sputtering inert-gas-condensation method. A modified magnetron-sputtering-based inert-gas-condensation (MS-IGC) system is presented, and its performances under different conditions are evaluated. Designed for graduate students, researchers in physics, materials science, biophysics and related fields, and process engineers, this new resource fills a critical need to understand the fundamentals behind the design and tailoring of the nanoparticles produced by the MS-IGC method. It shows that the morphology, the size and the properties of the nanoparticles can be modulated by tuning the deposition parameters such as the energy, the cooling rate, and the collision and coalescence processes experienced by the nanoparticles during their formation. The mechanisms of formation of different HNPs are suggested, combining the physico-chemical properties of the materials with the experimental conditions. This book illustrates the potential of MS-IGC method to synthesize multifunctional nanoparticles and nanocomposites with accurate control on their morphology and structure. However, for a better understanding of HNPs formation, further improvements in characterization methods of aggregation zone conditions are needed. In addition, the optimization of the yield and harvesting process of HNPs is essential to make this method sufficiently attractive for large-scale production.

Physician assisted suicide occurs when a terminally ill patient takes the decision to end their life with the help of their doctor. In this book the authors argue clearly and forcefully for the legalization of physician assisted suicide.

This volume examines crucial concerns in palliative care, including the proper balance between comfort and cure for the patient, the integration of spiritual well-being, and the challenges of providing care in the absence of basic medical services and supplies. In the first section, palliative-care pioneers Constance Dahlin, Eduardo Bruera, Neil MacDonald, and Declan Walsh recount the early history of the discipline. Part 2 discusses the role of poetry, prose, plays, and other aspects of the humanities in the practice of palliative care. Part 3 explores essential current issues in the field, including autonomy, the use of opioids, and the impact of artificial intelligence on the evolution of palliative care. The final section focuses on the spiritual dimensions of pain and suffering. Rich with anecdotes and personal stories and featuring contributions from pioneers and current practitioners, The Pursuit of Life is an essential assessment of the past, present, and future of palliative care. In addition to the editors, the contributors include W. Andrew Achenbaum, Stacy L. Auld, Elena Pagani Bagliacca, Costantino Benedetti, Courtenay Bruce, Eduardo Bruera, Joseph Calandrino, Jim Cleary, Constance Dahlin, Andrea Ferrari, Mauro Ferrari, Joseph J. Fins, Bettie Jo Tennon Hightower, Kathryn B. Kirkland, Robin W. Lovin, Neil MacDonald, Charles Millikan, Dominique J. Monlezun, Tullio Proserpio, Giovanna Sironi, Daniel P. Sulmasy, and Declan Walsh.

This important volume is the first to address the use of neuroimaging in civil and criminal forensic contexts and to include discussion of prior precedents and court decisions. Equally useful for practicing psychiatrists and psychologists, it reviews both the legal and ethical consideraitons of neuroimaging.