THE TRUE CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR AND SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER 'One of the most fascinating books I have read in a long time. Engrossing, a haunting page-turner. A book I could not put down' The Times, BOOKS OF THE YEAR __________ Meet the forensic pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd. He solves the mysteries of unexplained or sudden death. He has performed over 23,000 autopsies, including some of the most high-profile cases of recent times; the Hungerford Massacre, the Princess Diana inquiry, and 9/11. He has faced serial killers, natural disaster, 'perfect murders' and freak accidents. His evidence has put killers behind bars, freed the innocent, and turned open-and-shut cases on their heads. Yet all this has come at a huge personal cost. Unnatural Causes tells the story of not only the cases and bodies that have haunted him the most, but also how to live a life steeped in death. Thoughtful, revealing, chilling and always unputdownable, if you liked All That Remains, War Doctor and This is Going to Hurt you'll love this. **Pre-order Dr Richard Shepherd's new book THE SEVEN AGES OF DEATH now** __________ 'Gripping, grimly fascinating, and I suspect I'll read it at least twice' Evening Standard 'A deeply mesmerising memoir of forensic pathology. Human and fascinating' Nigella Lawson 'An absolutely brilliant book. I really recommend it, I don't often say that but it's fascinating' Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2 'Puts the reader at his elbow as he wields the scalpel' Guardian 'Fascinating, gruesome yet engrossing' Richard and Judy, Daily Express 'Fascinating, insightful, candid, compassionate' Observer

This book is an attempt to address the ethical issues raised by mental illness and its treatment by focusing on the question of autonomy. The mentally ill may be regarded as non-autonomous by virtue of irrationality, which may result in treatment models which deny them a voice. As a counter to this, some have moved to the other extreme and argued that the mentally ill must be regarded as fully autonomous in all circumstances, and consequently that all their wishes regarding treatment must be respected. This book examines the ethical consequences of such simplistic approaches towards autonomy and mental illness, and considers the ethical issues raised by specific forms of treatment. It is suggested in conclusion that improvement in the care and treatment of the mentally ill requires not only a fundamental change in social attitudes but also a less impoverished conception of autonomy than some of those currently employed.

Over the last several decades, bioethicists have championed a bewildering variety of methods for understanding and resolving difficult ethical problems in medicine, including: principlism, wide reflective equilibrium, casuistry, feminism, virtue theory, narrative, and others. Much of this advocacy overlooks the limitations of the favored method, and also neglects the strengths found in alternative approaches.
Tom Tomlinson systematically uncovers and evaluates both the strengths and limits of a variety of ethical tools, and in so doing develops a comprehensive appreciation of the roles that various methods can play in deepening our understanding of ethical problems in medicine, and in supporting well-grounded judgments about what to do. He critically evaluates each method to identify both limits and advantages, which he then illustrates through discussion of specific cases and controversies. Tomlinson not only demonstrates that there is no single method adequate to the task, but tries to develop an informed eclecticism that knows how to pick the right tool for the right job. All those engaged in thinking about bioethical theories will find Tomlinson's work important reading.

This book examines the question of what parental obligations procreators incur by bringing children into being. Prusak argues that parents, as procreators, have obligations regarding future children that constrain the liberty of would-be parents to do as they wish. Moreover, these obligations go beyond simply respecting a child's rights. He addresses in turn the ethics of adoption, child support, gamete donation, surrogacy, prenatal genetic enhancement, and public responsibility for children.

Fire, flood, earthquake, famine, pestilence, and warfare are no strangers to our experience. Once, we sought to placate the gods who brought these evils upon us. Today, clinicians, engineers, and politicians replace priests, prophets, seers, and shamans, and we Americans in particular think to impose our will upon the world. In times of catastrophe, issues of good and evil surrender to rapid, nearly automatic, operational response. Yet the catastrophic event poses unavoidable moral choices, ones that are more politically and emotionally complex since 9/11 and our "War on Terrorism." This book benefits from the emergence of bioethics as it has evolved from its clinical roots to address policy, politics, and social practice far removed from that origin. At the same time, the clinical focus on narratives and cases provides a tangible center for ethical reflection. It reminds us that ethics is about persons and their choices, a perspective often lost to abstraction when ethics is left to the ministrations of academe. By treating the catastrophic event as both a category and a genre, Bioethics connects to aesthetics and so enables us to enrich ethical inquiry by ranging from pandemic, hurricane, and flood to terrorist attack."

As a mental health nurse, possessing an ethical sensibility and developing ethical reasoning is vital. This book is a practical introduction to the skills and knowledge the mental health nurse is professionally required to develop in their journey towards effectively managing complex ethical decisions. Written with the training mental health nurse in mind, this book is a clear and concise guide on how to approach common, ethically-complex situations mental health nurses will eventually find themselves faced with. It includes textboxes which take the reader into a 'real world' scenario to help them explore the moral and ethical issues discussed throughout the chapter. To ensure professional currency, the content of this book is mapped to the Nursing and Midwifery Council's pre-registration education standards of 2010, and uses a scenario-based approach in order to provide a pragmatic and robust resource. A Practical Introduction to Mental Health Ethics is essential reading for pre-registration mental health nursing students, while also being of value to registered mental health nurses working in ethically challenged areas such as dementia care, psychiatric intensive care units.

Medical ethics is a vitally important subject, and currently a highly controversial one. Recent cases have highlighted both the intellectual and moral challenges posed by the dilemmas of modern medicine, and their significance for us all. John Harris gives a fully up-to-date survey of the issues in this crucial field of applied ethics, including in vitro fertilization and experimentation on human embryos.
Professor Harris explores the principal ethical dilemmas that arise in medical practice and research, and by challenging our basic assumptions and familiar ideas, shows how the most diffficult problems may be approached and resolved. He presents a clear discussion of the major issues, and argues for a radical re-appraisal of our way of thinking about these problems and of the traditional solutions to them.
The book is intended both to introdduce the general reader to the problems of medical ethics, and as a text for the study and discussion of medical ethics in medical schools and in the training of health professionals. It will also be of value as a text for applied and practical ethics courses in philosophy departments and departments of social policy and administration, politics, sociology and liberal studies.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203005600

This book fills an important gap in existing health care ethics literature by describing an egalitarian conception of moral respect which applies to autonomous and non-autonomous patients alike. It reframes questions about respect, from its target to the role that respect plays in our moral lives. Taking into account various forms of objectification, it suggests that the unique role of moral respect is to recognize a person as more than a mere object; to recognize them as an equally intrinsically valuable being who possesses dignity. Further, the book argues that respect is central to health care because medicine and experiences of illness are both inherently objectifying. Objectification is sometimes morally permissible, and other times morally troubling-a context of respect can help to distinguish between these situations. Because we can reduce others to mere objects in ways other than violating or denying their autonomy, the approach presented here can also accommodate non-autonomous patients directly without considering them as marginal cases.

This volume is the result of a symposium titled "Constructivist Approaches to Atypical Development and Developmental Psychopathology." What emerges from the work included here is a record of innovative extensions, refinements, and applications of the concept of constructivism. The chapters not only demonstrate the compatibility of constructivism with investigations of atypicality, but also the generation of a constructivist perspective for a wide array of problems in developmental psychology.

Commodified Bodies examines the social practice of organ transplantation and trafficking and scrutinises the increasingly neoliberal tendencies in the medical system. It analyses phenomena such as the denomination of human body parts as "raw materials" and "commodities," or the arguments used by the proponents for a free market solution. Moreover, it argues that modern medicine is still linked with its religious roots. The commodification of body parts is seen not as an imperialistic act of the market, but as the end of a historical process as the notion of "fetishism" links the market with the body. Marx's concept of commodity fetishism and Sigmund Freud's theory of the perverted use of objects are modified and adapted to the reconstruction of the joint beginnings of market and medicine.

This collection of essays emphasizes society's increasingly responsible engagement with ethical challenges in emerging medical technology. Expansion of technological capacity and attention to patient safety have long been integral to improving healthcare delivery but only relatively recently have concepts like respect, distributive justice, privacy, and autonomy gained some power to shape the development, use, and refinement of medical tools and techniques. Medical ethics goes beyond making better medicine to thinking about how to make the field of medicine better. These essays showcase several ways in which modern ethical thinking is improving safety, efficacy and efficiency of medical technology, increasing access to medical care, and empowering patients to choose care that comports with their desires and beliefs. Included are complimentary ethical approaches as well as compelling counter-arguments. Together, the articles demonstrate how improving the quality of medical technology relies on every stakeholder -- not just medical researchers and scientists -- to assess each given technology's strengths and pitfalls. This collection also portends one of the next major issues in the ethics of medical technology: developing the requisite moral framework to accompany shifts toward patient-centred personalized healthcare.

With much of the world's population facing restricted access to adequate medical care, how to allocate scarce health-care resources is a pressing question for governments, hospitals, and individuals. How do we decide where funding for health-care programs should go? Tannsjo here approaches the subject from a philosophical perspective, balancing theoretical treatments of distributive ethics with real-world examples of how health-care is administered around the world today. Tannsjo begins by laying out several popular ethical theories-utilitarianism, which recommends maximizing the best overall outcome; egalitarianism, which recommends smoothing out the differences between people as much as possible; and the maximin/leximin theory, which urges people to give absolute priority to those who are worst off. Tannsjo shows how, in abstract thought experiments, these theories come into conflict with each other and reveal puzzling implications. He goes on to argue, however, that when we consider health-care in the real-world, these theories all agree on a central point: in a well-ordered welfare state, more resources should be directed to the care and cure of people suffering from mental illness, and less to the marginal life extension of elderly patients. Tannsjo's book thus recommends a shift in spending to increase fairness and overall utility-while also recognizing that this kind of dispassionate suggestion, with its purely economic foundation, is unlikely to take hold in policy. Tannsjo's analysis is a case study in how ethical theories can sometimes lead to rational conclusions and recommendations that we are not prepared to accept.

Palliative medicine is the medical care provided for people who have a life limiting illness or condition. It encompasses both the physical symptoms a person may experience but also the psychosocial, emotional, and ethical issues that may arise. Now in its fourth edition, Palliative Medicine: A Case-Based Manual walks clinicians through the management of the most common situations found in palliative medicine, from diagnosis and managing symptoms through to grief and bereavement. Using real patient case scenarios and an easy-to-read question and answer format, it gives students and medical professionals an accessible, evidence-based entryway to gain the skills and knowledge needed to provide high quality palliative and end of life care to patients and their families. This new edition has been fully updated to cover the latest guidance, including new chapters dedicated to medical cannabis, opioids, grief and bereavement, and wider issues including palliative care in the community, structurally vulnerable populations, and public health. Written by over 50 experienced palliative care clinicians and educators, this book will be a welcome guide for palliative care workers, medical and nursing students, and medical professionals of any specialty where palliative needs might arise.

This book sheds light on important philosophical assumptions made by professionals working in clinical and research medicine. In doing so, it aims to make explicit how active philosophy is in medicine and shows how this awareness can result in better and more informed medical research and practice. It examines: what features make something a scientific discipline; the inherent tensions between understanding medicine as a research science and as a healing practice; how the "replication crisis" in medical research asks us to rethink the structure of knowledge production in our modern world; whether explanations have any real scientific values; the uncertainties about probabilistic claims; and whether it is possible for evidence-based medicine to truly be value free. The final chapter argues that the most important question we can ask is not, "How can we separate values from science?" but, "In a democratic society, how can we decide in a politically and morally acceptable way what values should drive science?" Key features: introduces complex philosophical issues in a manner accessible to non-professional academics; critically examines philosophical assumptions made in medicine, providing a better understanding of medicine that can lead to better healthcare; integrates medical examples and historic contexts so as to frame the rationale of philosophical views and provide lively illustrations of how philosophy can impact science and our lives; uses inter-connected chapters to demonstrate that disparate philosophical concepts are deeply related (e.g., it shows how the aims of medicine inform how we should understand theoretical reasoning).

Nursing Ethics: Across the Curriculum and Into Practice continues to provide a solid ethical foundation for nursing students in an updated sixth edition. This comprehensive, easy-to-read text covers ethics across the nursing curriculum, making it a perfect fit for any undergraduate course. Logically divided into three parts, Nursing Ethics, Sixth Edition underscores how ethics is interwoven with nearly every aspect of professional nursing practice. It guides students through the foundations of ethics in nursing, ethical considerations across the lifespan, and ethical considerations for areas such as leadership and public health. Engaging learning features, including case studies, legal perspectives, and research notes bring concepts to life and serve to remind students that ethics really does sit at the heart of professional nursing practice and quality patient care. The Sixth Edition features information on current mainstream topics as related to nursing ethics, including: * Updated content on the status of abortion; * Updated content reflecting and referencing the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court; * Updated content related to women's rights/pro-life arguments; * Contains new information and a case study surrounding the RaDonda Vaught case; * Updated content related to HPV and the.

This book encompasses the theoretical and practical aspects of surgical ethics, with a focus on the application of ethical standards to everyday surgical practice and the resolution of ethical conflicts in the surgical arena. It provides surgeons (both prospective and practicing) in the different surgical fields with deep, practical insights into the topic. A 21st century surgeon requires complete competence (superb clinical skills, expert surgical decision-making and outstanding performance and technical skills) as well as solid ethical values. Ethics are placed at the core of surgical professionalism, so surgeons must be not only proficient and expert but also ethically and morally reliable. Surgical decision-making can be considered as a two-step process: the "how to treat" aspect is a matter of surgical science, while "why to treat" issues are a matter of surgical ethics and are based on ethical principles. As such, every surgeon should have a moral compass to guide his or her actions, always placing the welfare and rights of the patients above their own. The book provides invaluable background and insights for solving the ethical conflicts surgeons around the globe encounter in their daily practice. Each chapter will also include features such as key point summaries in the beginning of the chapters, explanatory boxes, a glossary and suggested readings. Surgical Ethics - Principles and Practice is an authoritative work in the field designed for experienced surgeons, surgical residents, and fellows, all of whom are confronted with ethics issues and conflicts in practice.

In 1841 the American sailing ship William Brown struck an iceberg. About half of the passengers and all of the crew were saved in two small, open boats. The next night, half of the passengers in the larger long-boat were thrown overboard because the boat was overfull. This was the first case of "lifeboat ethics," of hard choices in the face of scarcity. Since then the question has been "who should die so that others, equally needy, might live?" Both the case of the William Brown and the ethics it spawned have been used in recent years to describe the problem of health care rationing generally, and organ transplantation specifically. Koch reexamines and reinterpretes the paradigm case of lifeboat ethics, the story of the William Brown, not as an unavoidable tragedy, but as an avoidable series of errors. Its relation to more general issues of distributive justice are then considered. The lessons learned from both the historical review and its application to distributive principles are then applied to the problem of graft organ distribution in the United States. Through the use of maps, the problem of organ distribution is considered at a range of scales, from the international to the urban. The contextual issues become more evident as one moves from international to hemispheric, fron national to regional, and then local systems. Finally, Koch reviews the lessons in light of other problems of distribution in the face of scarcity. The central lesson-that scarcity is exacerbated where it is not in fact created by our distributive programs-is explored thoroughly. The result is "no good choices" for anyone and the continuation of the scarcity that for most seems inevitable, but, from theevidence provided, is itself an outcome of inequalities of distribution at different scales of society. Of particular interest to students, scholars, and policymakers involved with issues of planning and health care economics, medical geography, and concepts of justice.

AIDS strikes most heavily at those already marginalized by conventional society. With no immediate prospect of vaccination or cure, how can liberty, dignity, and reasoned hope be preserved in the shadow of an epidemic? In this humane and graceful book, philosopher Timothy Murphy offers insight into our attempts - popular and academic, American and non-American, scientific and political - to make moral sense of pain. Murphy addresses the complex moral questions raised by AIDS for health-care workers, politicians, policy makers, and even people with AIDS themselves. He ranges widely, analyzing contrasting visions of the origin and the future of the epidemic, the moral and political functions of obituaries, the uncertain value of celebrity involvement in anti-AIDS education, the functional uses of AIDS in the discourse of presidential campaigns, the exclusionary function of HIV testing for immigrants, the priority given to AIDS on the national health agenda, and the hypnotic publicity given to 'innocent' victims. Murphy's discussions of the many social and political confusions about AIDS are unified by his attempt to articulate the moral assumptions framing our interpretations of the epidemic. By understanding those assumptions, we will be in a better position to resist self-serving and invidious moralizing, reckless political response, and social censure of the sick and the dying.

A Practical Guide to Clinical Ethics Consulting reasserts the philosophical method as foundational to ethics consulting. It does so in response to extensive attacks from social scientists, lawyers, theologians, and especially practitioners, all of whom disparage philosophy's reliance on abstract theory and conceptual analysis. Using clinical ethics consulting as an exemplar, Christopher Meyers argues that while many of the attacks are well founded, they are only partly so and not in the most important respects. Ethics consulting that relies too heavily on abstract analysis is of little use to practitioners; consultants must have adequate grounding in, and appreciation of, the concrete reality of working professionals. They must also be experienced enough to have the practical wisdom necessary to assist with real-world problems. Skills of philosophical analysis, when combined with instruction in empirical investigation, political awareness and appropriate character traits, are vital to ethics consulting. Ethicists need the theoretical and conceptual analysis skills that are a standard part of a philosophical education and mindset. The book provides both a defense of this central thesis and a detailed description of the empirical tools and of the critical independence necessary to effective consulting."

The ethic of care has developed to become a body of theory that has expanded from its roots in social psychology to many other disciplines in the social sciences as well as the humanities. This work on care has informed both theory and practice by generating complex accounts of care ethics for multiple and intersecting kinds of relationships, and for a variety of domains and contexts. Its application now extends from the moral to the political realm, from personal to public relationships, from the local to the global, from feminine to feminist virtues and values, and from issues of gender to issues of power and oppression. The developments in the theories and applications of care ethics over the past few decades make this book an appropriate and timely publication. It includes chapters by authors who are developing or expanding theories of care ethics and also by those who work on applying and extending insights from care ethics to practices and policies in personal and institutional settings. Care Ethics provides readers from different disciplines and professional groups with a substantial number of new theories and applications from both new and established authors. This book was originally published as two special issues of Ethics and Social Welfare.

The use of human subjects in biomedical research has increased rapidly with scientific discoveries. However, the failure to achieve the highest--or even adequate--standards of professional moral concern and behavior is a serious side effect. Research on Human Subjects is based on four years of intensive research in which two studies were completed--one on a nationally representative sample of biomedical research institutions, the second on a sample of 350 researchers who actually used human subjects. The authors explore prevalent ethical norms, the actual ethical behavior of scientists, and the dilemma between the values of humane therapy and scientific discovery. They document the inadequate training that biomedical researchers receive in the ethics of research on human subjects, not only in medical schools but in post-graduate training as well. This landmark work makes very specific suggestions for policy change and reform for the biomedical research profession and its employment of human subjects.

Contemporary debates over issues as wide-ranging as the protection of wildernesses and endangered species, the spread of genetically modified organisms, the emergence of synthetic biology, and the advance of human enhancement, all of which seem to spin into deeper and more baffling questions with every change in the news cycle, often circle back to the same fundamental question: should there be limits to the human alteration of the natural world? A growing number of people view the human capacity to alter natural states of affairs - from formerly wild spaces and things around us to crops and livestock to our own human nature - as cause for moral alarm. That reaction raises a number of perplexing philosophical questions, however: Can we identify "natural" states of affairs at all? Does the idea of being morally concerned about the human relationship to nature make any sense? Should such a concern influence public policy and politics, or should government stay strenuously neutral on such matters? Through a study of moral debates about the environment, agricultural biotechnology, synthetic biology, and human enhancement, Gregory E. Kaebnick, a research scholar at The Hastings Center and editor of the Hastings Center Report, argues that concerns about the human alteration of nature can be legitimate and serious, but also that they are complex, contestable, and of limited political force. Kaebnick defends attempts to identify "natural" states of affairs by disentangling the nature/artifact distinction from metaphysical hoariness. Drawing on David Hume, he also defends moral standards for the human relationship to nature, arguing that they, and moral standards generally, should be understood as grounded in what Hume called the "passions." Yet what counts as "natural" can be delineated only roughly, he concludes, and moral standards for interaction with nature are less a matter of obligation than of ideals. Kaebnick also concludes, drawing on an interpretation of the liberal principle of neutrality, that government may support those standards but must be careful not to enforce them. Thus Kaebnick looks for a middle way on debates that have tended toward polarization. "As differences between nature and artifact become steadily less substantial, problems about preservation run to the core of how people can make sense of themselves, of each other, and of our shared world. Kaebnick's solutions are creative and compelling, theoretically elegant and politically practical. Providing distinctive ways forward, when much academic and policy discussion seems exhausted, his book demands wide attention. In return, it inspires hope." - James Nelson, Michigan State University

Strive for health equity and surmount institutional oppression when treating marginalized populations with this distinct resource!This unique text provides a framework for delivering culturally safe clinical care to LGBTQIA populations filtered through the lens of racial, economic, and reproductive justice. It focuses strongly on the social context in which we live, one where multiple historical processes of oppression continue to manifest as injustices in the health care setting and beyond. Encompassing the shared experiences of a diverse group of expert health care practitioners, this book offers abundant examples, case studies, recommendations, and the most up-to-date guidelines available for treating LGBTQIA patient populations. Rich in clinical scenarios that describe best practices for safely treating patients, this text features varied healthcare frameworks encompassing patient-centered and community-centered care that considers the intersecting and ongoing processes of oppression that impact LGBTQIA people every day--particularly people of color. This text helps health providers incorporate safe and culturally appropriate language into their care, understand the roots and impact of stigma, address issues of health disparities, and recognize and avoid racial or LGBTQIA microaggressions. Specific approaches to care include chapters on sexual health care, perinatal care, and information about pregnancy and postpartum care for transgender and gender-expansive people. Key Features: Emphasizes patient-centered care incorporating an understanding of patient histories, safety needs, and power imbalances Provides tools for clinician self-reflection to understand and alleviate implicit bias Fosters culturally safe language and communication skills Presents abundant patient scenarios including specific dos and don'ts in patient treatment Includes concrete objectives, conclusions, terminology, and references in each chapter and discussion questions to promote critical thought Offers charts and information boxes to illuminate key information

This study deals with an underexplored area of the emerging technologies debate: robotics in the healthcare setting. The author explores the role of care and develops a value-sensitive ethical framework for the eventual employment of care robots. Highlighting the range of positive and negative aspects associated with the initiative to design and use care robots, it draws out essential content as a guide to future design both reinforcing this study's contemporary relevance, and giving weight to its prescriptions. The book speaks to, and is meant to be read by, a range of disciplines from science and engineering to philosophers and ethicists.

Each year, roughly a million new cases of cancer appear in the US, and more than 500,000 Americans die annually of premature death. Although medical progress has slowed cancer mortality, its incidence is increasing roughly six times faster than cancer mortality is decreasing. Breast cancer, in particular, has been increasing about one percent each year since 1973. At least two of the factors responsible for this surge in breast cancer are women's use of medically-prescribed synthetic hormones and the exposure of the entire population to chemicals such as dioxin. Both exposures increase the likelihood of breast cancer. Although many ethicists worry about involuntary societal imposition of chemicals such as dioxin, through industrial and agricultural processes, allegedly voluntary exposures also constitute both, a public-health problem and a biomedical-ethics difficulty. Physicians recommend synthetic hormones, for example, to women who apparently take them voluntarily. In the case of in vitro fertilization, doctors prescribe hormones to induce egg production and to increase the chances of reproduction for couples who are unable to have children. Despite the benefits of medical technologies such as hormone stimulation and in vitro fertilization, they also carry great risks. The price that childless women pay, for their opportunity to have children through in vitro fertilization, may be their own increased risk of diseases - such as breast cancer - that are hormone dependent.