In this book, authors from a wide interdisciplinary spectrum discuss the issue of care. The book covers both philosophical and therapeutic studies and contains a three-pronged approach to discussing the concepts of care: vulnerability, otherness, and therapy. Above all, it is a matter of combining, in a plural form, a path with multiple theoretical and conceptual bifurcations, but which always point to an observation of society from the perspective of human vulnerability.

This book provides a bridge between the theory to practice gap in contemporary health care ethics. It explores the messiness of everyday ethical issues and validates the potential impacts on health care professionals as wounded healers who regularly experience close proximity to suffering and pain. This book speaks to why ethics matters on a personal level and how moral distress experiences can be leveraged instead of hidden. The book offers contributions to both scholarship and the profession. Nurses, physicians, social workers, allied health care professionals, as well as academics and students will benefit from this book.

Adverse effects of drugs are a constant source of medical problems but also of professional and legal confrontations. More than a quarter of all malpractice suits brought against physicians or other health professionals revolve around drug injury; for drug manufacturers, civil cases brought by patients are growing problem. Where conflicts do not reach the courts they are often the subject of settlements or of decisions taken by professional disciplinary councils. Uniguely, this book analysis and documents the responsibilities which all parties bear in law and ethics to render drug treatment as safe as it can be, and the liability whidh arises when injury is siffered. Special attention is devoted to the apportionment of liability, where faults may have been made by more than one party, and to the establishment of facts in a field where the evidence is likely to be heavily challenged. The pproach is global, since drugs, their makers and their users are much the same across the world; what is more systems of law and ethics have borrowed solutions from one another, while in some parts of the world - notably in consultations between the United States, Europe and Japan, medicinal policies and regulations are fast being harmonized. Contents: Six chapters in the book document the general medical and legal background to drug safewty and injury; seven set out the duties and liability of the parties concerned ranging from health professionals through governments and institutions to the patient himself. Eight chapters provide in-depth guidance on special issues including drug injury to the unborn child, vaccines, liability in alternative medicine and existing compensation schemes.

This book discusses feature films that enrich our understanding of doctor-patient dilemmas. The book comprises general clinical ethics themes and principles and is written in accessible language. Each theme is discussed and illuminated in chapters devoted to a particular film. Chapters start with a discussion of the film itself, which shares details behind the making of the film; box-office and critical reception; casting; and other facts about production. The chapter then situates the film in a history of medicine and medical sociology context before it delves into the clinical ethics issues in the film, and how to use it as a teaching aid for clinical ethics. Readers will understand how each film in this collection served to bring particular clinical ethics issues to the public's attention or reflected medico-legal issues that were part of the public discourse. The book is a perfect instructor's guide for anyone teaching bioethics, healthcare ethics, medical sociology, medical history, healthcare systems, narrative medicine, or nursing ethics.

As society struggles to cope with the many repercussions of assisted life and death, the evening news is filled with stories of legal battles over frozen embryos and the possible prosecution of doctors for their patients' suicide. Using an "institutional" approach as an alternative to the prevailing "rights" based analysis of problems in law and medicine, this study explains why society should resist the tendency to look to science and law for a resolution of intimate matters, such as how our children are born and how we die. Palmer's institutional approach demonstrates that legislative analysis is often more important than judicial analysis when it comes to issues raised by new reproductive technologies and physician-assisted suicide. A reliance on individual rights alone for answers to the complex ethical questions that result from society's faith in scientific progress and science's close alliance with medicine will be insufficient and ill-advised. Palmer predicts that the key role of the family as a societal institution will mean that questions of assisted reproduction will be resolved more in response to market forces than through legal intervention. However, he does support a strong role for legislatures in decisions involving the physicians' role in our deaths. These findings are based on the differing views of the Supreme Court justices in these matters: a tendency to protect family formation from state interference (as in abortion decisions), but support of a legislative obligation to control medicine (assisted suicide). According to Palmer, recent Supreme Court decisions on physician assisted suicide usher in a new era in how legal institutions will resolve biomedical dilemmas.

The Law and Ethics of Medicine: Essays on the Inviolability of Human Life explains the principle of the inviolability of human life and its continuing relevance to English law governing aspects of medical practice at the beginning and end of life. The book shows that the principle, though widely recognized as an historic and foundational principle of the common law, has been misunderstood in the legal academy, at the Bar and on the Bench. Part I of the book identifies the confusion and clarifies the principle, distinguishing it from 'vitalism' on the one hand and a 'qualitative' evaluation of human life on the other. Part II addresses legal aspects of the beginning of life, including the history of the law against abortion and its relevance to the ongoing abortion debate in the US; the law relating to the 'morning after' pill; and the legal status of the human embryo in vitro. Part III addresses legal aspects of the end of life, including the euthanasia debate; the withdrawal of tube-feeding from patients in a 'persistent vegetative state'; and the duty to provide palliative treatment. This unique collection of essays offers a much-needed clarification of a cardinal legal and ethical principle and should be of interest to lawyers, bioethicists, and healthcare professionals (whether they subscribe to the principle or not) in all common law jurisdictions and beyond.

Students and professional nurses at any level of clinical practice will find this book to be a vital resource on the basic legal concepts and principles of malpractice, liability, and risk management, and their implications for the profession. The book also provides detailed strategies for dealing with these issues. The content is also highly relevant to practitioners in all other health care and legal disciplines that collaborate in the delivery of health care. Issues discussed include the expanding and evolving roles for professional nurses and the concomitant legal accountability and risk for liability, the increasing incidence of nurses named as defendants in malpractice lawsuits, anticipated changes in our health care delivery system, and breakthroughs in science and technology that will present new legal questions. The book also includes material on other important facets of today's nursing practice, including the growing phenomenon of tele-nursing, the essentials of malpractice insurance, and the legal significance of documentation and patients' medical records. It helps the reader identify the nurse at risk for a malpractice suit and the characteristics of the patient likely to sue. The appendices provide information on state laws concerned with access to medical records, a list of useful websites, a list of state boards of nursing, and a glossary of important terms.

In September 2018, Professor Sean Davison's peaceful life in the leafy suburbs of Pinelands, Cape Town is shattered. Arrested for the murder of Dr Anrich Burger, a once-fit athlete turned quadriplegic who begged Davison to assist him in ending his life in 2015, the unassuming academic and father of three now finds himself locked up in a prison cell.

Under investigation led by the Hawks, an additional two murders are added to the case for which he now faces a mandatory life prison sentence. Written in compelling detail, The Price of Mercy tracks the extraordinary journey that Davison embarks on to prepare for the gruelling legal challenge that lies ahead.

The desperate cries of many, begging for his assistance to help end their lives of suffering haunt him. Unwavering in his belief that we all have the right to die with dignity, Davison's selfless battle is made more bearable by his friendship with the late and great Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

A book that will change the way you see death.

As the American population ages, health care for the elderly grows in importance. This bibliography overviews the most significant books and journal articles on the ethical issues related to health care for older Americans. The topics covered are of interest to practitioners and the general public alike, as well as to professionals from a wide range of fields. The author has provided more than five hundred bibliographic citations. These entries are arranged in eleven topical chapters to facilitate use by the reader. Each citation is accompanied by an annotation that concisely summarizes and assesses the contents of the work. The volume begins with an informative introductory essay on the ethical issues pertinent to health care for older adults. The chapters that follow are devoted to broad topics, such as financial considerations, treatment for the terminally ill, and decision-making by and for the impaired elderly. The work concludes with author and subject indexes that add to its utility. Researchers and practitioners from all fields will find this work an indispensable guide to the wealth of literature on the ethical aspects of health care for older Americans.

"Personalist Bioethics" calls us to reflect on the intimate meaning of human existence and the social environment, going beyond any specific religious perspective and invoking human reason. It advances a metaphysics that is rationally grounded in philosophical anthropology and has a broad range of ethical applications for professors of bioethics, members of ethics committees, bioethics students, and those interested in the field in general, whether in medicine, law, or philosophy. Readers will find a presentation and discussion of the basic contours of personalist bioethics, comparisons of personalism with other philosophical positions, and ethical investigations of particular topics, ranging from genetic engineering to euthanasia. Translated by John A. Di Camillo and Michael J. Miller.

Psychiatry Under the Influence investigates the actions and practices of the American Psychiatric Association and academic psychiatry in the United States, and presents it as a case study of institutional corruption.

Spiritual Competence for Mental Health Professionals takes a holistic developmental approach toward spirituality in psychotherapy and counseling. This means that it considers an understanding of spiritual development to be as germane to mental health practice as an understanding of physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development and that it views spirituality as shaped by developmental processes. Common spiritual issues at each stage in the individual and family life course are discussed. Tools for understanding one's own and one's clients' spiritual orientations and goals along with interventions and practices that foster spiritual growth in the client and the practitioner are presented. Reflection and discussion topics are provided at the end of each chapter. Ultimately, this book aims to help mental health practitioners, educators and students to change their approach from 'meet the client where they are spiritually' to 'meet the client where they are spiritually and help them develop further.'

This book offers a theoretical and practical overview of the specific ethical and legal issues in pediatric organ transplantation. Written by a team of leading experts, Ethical Issues in Pediatric Organ Transplantation addresses those difficult ethical questions concerning clinical, organizational, legal and policy issues including donor, recipient and allocation issues. Challenging topics, including children as donors, donation after cardiac death, misattributed paternity, familial conflicts of interest, developmental disability as a listing criteria, small bowel transplant, and considerations in navigating the media are discussed. It serves as a fundamental handbook and resource for pediatricians, transplant health care professionals, trainees, graduate students, scholars, practitioners of bioethics and health policy makers.

The Medical Biobank of Umea in Sweden, deCODE's Health Sector Database in Iceland, the Estonian Genome Project and the UK Biobank contain health data and genetic data from large populations. Some include genealogical or lifestyle information. They are resources for research in human genetics and medicine, exploring interaction between genes, lifestyle, environmental factors and health and diseases. The collection, storage and use of this data raise ethical, legal and social issues. In this book, first published in 2007, bioethics scholars examine whether existing ethical frameworks and social policies reflect people's concerns, and how they may need to change in light of new scientific and technological developments. The ethical issues of social justice, genetic discrimination, informational privacy, trust in science and consent to participation in database research are analyzed, whilst an empirical survey, conducted in the four countries, demonstrates public views of privacy and related moral values in the context of human genetic databases.

Noted economist Douglas Vickers reexamines the relationship between economics and moral philosophy. That relationship, once very strong, is again the subject of increasing attention and discussion both within and beyond the academy. Vickers reestablishes the substantial bridges between ethical philosophy and economics. He addresses three main issues: first, the historical means by which economics has consciously surrendered its original association with ethical categories and criteria; second, the need to articulate the appropriate thoughtforms and vocabulary of ethical theory; and third, the illustration of areas in economics where ethical awareness is desirable and should be allowed to exert influence. This work is a major analysis which will be of considerable interest to economists, the business community, government regulators, and all concerned with economic decisionmaking in modern society.

As a critical examination of the pervasive tension existing between defensive medicine and good, ethical patient care, this book investigates the impact of legalities on medical treatment. Physicians today are apprehensive about the threat of malpractice suits. Kapp explores the extent to which this fear is justified. He examines where physicians get their ideas about what the law forbids and requires, how physicians' perceptions of the law and medicine affect medical care, and whether these behavioral manifestations benefit or hurt a physician's ability to practice ethically. Kapp then suggests ways medical professionals can resolve tension caused by conflicting demands and encourage more ethical care.

Ectogenesis refers to the artificial gestation of a fetus outside the womb. Despite certain advantages for women's reproductive liberty, feminist groups remain divided regarding this technology. This book argues that reproduction imposes unjust burdens on women, and thus the ideals of equal opportunity demand continued research into ectogenesis.

The whole field of drug research has become a minefield of sensitive issues with the opponents entrenched at opposite extremes taking pot shots at each other. The attacks made on drug research and the pharmaceutical industry in particular have become so venomous that an attempt needed to be made to provide a balanced ethical appraisal of the situation. Neither pro- nor antagonists are fully right, but some common grounds need to be found. The author believes that this commons grounds resides in the religious and philosophical foundations on which western industrial society has been built.

This book addresses the pressing issues involved with the ethical conduct of research in one developing world region - the Arab Region. Clinical research has soared in the developing world -as pharmaceutical companies continue their search for regions with large, treatment naive populations - including the Arab region, and has profound implications for the health and the economies for the area. The ethical issues involved with the conduct of such research, however, have so far not been adequately addressed. This volume presents the issues regarding research ethics and research governance that have relevance for health authorities, regulators, industry, and academia. As a multi-authored volume it includes both international and local experts on ethical issues in research, representing all stakeholders, thus presenting a balanced view on this timely topic.

This collection addresses whether ethicists, like authorities in other fields, can speak as experts in their subject matter. Though ethics consultation is a growing practice in medical contexts, there remain difficult questions about the role of ethicists in professional decision-making. Contributors examine the nature and plausibility of moral expertise, the relationship between character and expertise, the nature and limits of moral authority, how one might become a moral expert, and the trustworthiness of moral testimony. This volume engages with the growing literature in these debates and offers new perspectives from both academics and practitioners. The readings will be of particular interest to bioethicists, clinicians, ethics committees, and students of social epistemology. These new essays promise to advance discussions in the professionalization and accreditation of ethics consultation.

Dr. James Hansen's vision and insight regarding the nature of the health care crisis evolved from positions of medical staff leadership, teaching, participating in the governance process, and developing a free clinic. These positions, together with his 35 years as a consulting physician, presented him with the opportunity to view physician behavior and its impact both on patients and upon health care in general. These observations crystallized his conclusion that the essence of successful health care springs from the physician-patient relationship. Dr. Hansen received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University. He then attended the University of Southern California School of Medicine where he received his MD in 1965. His post graduate training in internal medicine occupied the next four years at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. After a three year stint in the Army he returned to Wadsworth VA-UCLA for a fellowship in gastroenterology. Dr. Hansen is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Gastroenterology, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine. He has been in private practice since 1973. He was appointed to the Mercy Healthcare Board of Trust in 1988, serving in that capacity for three years. He served as chief-of-staff for both American River Hospital and Mercy San Juan Hospital from 1990-1993 and was actively engaged in consolidating the medical. staffs of those two hospitals which merged in 1993. He was the chairman of the Physician Leadership Group for the 5-hospital Mercy Healthcare Sacramento system from 1995-1998 during a period of hospital redesign. Dr. Hansen was actively involved in teaching at UC Davis, School of Medicine for nearly 20 years as a voluntary clinical faculty person. In 1994 he helped develop a free clinic in Sacramento and became its medical director until moving to Maui in 2001. Dr. Hansen has been in the private practice of gastroenterology in Maui since 2001. Dr. Hansen's unique perspective as a practicing physician, physician leader, and medical educator provides the perspective and passion for his quest of the root cause and cure of the health care crisis. This book offers a solution for the health care crisis, which focuses on the need for a grass level approach and revolution led by the citizenry.

Walton offers a comprehensive, flexible model for physician-patient decision making, the first such tool designed to be applied at the level of each particular case. Based on Aristotelian practical reasoning, it develops a method of reasonable dialogue, a question- and-answer process of interaction leading to informed consent on the part of the patient, and to a decision--mutually arrived at--reflecting both high medical standards and the patient's felt needs. After setting forth his model, he applies it to three vital ethical issues: acts of omission, the cessation of treatment, and possible side effects of treatments. In the final chapter, Walton shows how his method functions in light of the real-life complexities of the clinical encounter and how it bears on ethical questions concerning health-care policy, attitudes toward treatment and toward the medical profession, reasonableness of expectations, and the setting of realistic goals of treatment.

This volume consists of fourteen chapters selected from papers presented at the conference Ethics, Medicine and Health Care: An Appraisal of the Thought of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.' along with a response to those chapters by Engelhardt and a Foreword by Laurence B. McCullough. The chapters direct primary attention to various aspects of Engelhardt's philosophy of medicine and bioethics as presented in The Foundations of Bioethics and Bioethics and Secular Humanism: The Search for a Common Morality. Among the topics treated are the economics of health care and the medical profession, the libertarian and communitarian aspects of Engelhardt's thought, the moral status of children, abortion, the moral foundations for a health care system, feminism and clinical epistemology, and the relation between secular and religious moralities. In response to the various challenges posed by the authors, Engelhardt considers the implications of the failure of the modern philosophical project, the role of reason in ethics, and the resolution of conflict among communities that do not share the same moral vision. The book will be of interest to professionals in medicine, philosophy, theology, health policy, and law, and to graduate students in those disciplines.