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.

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 thought-provoking volume is based on papers given by practising and academic lawyers, judges, psychiatrists, forensic experts and sociologists to a recent conference in Cambridge. The contributors consider possible approaches towards the resolution of the main dilemmas that face psychiatry, society and the law, and towards healing the rifts that have developed between the different professions concerned with the mentally ill. They also consider the best means of promoting more humane, successful and socially efficient services.

This book provides a multi-disciplinary framework for developing and analysing health sector reforms, based on the authors' extensive international experience. It offers practical guidance, and stresses the need to take account of each country's economic, administrative, and political circumstances. The authors explain how to design effective government interventions in five areas - financing, payment, organization, regulation, and behaviour - to improve the performance and equity of health systems around the world.

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.

In America, in direct response to indefinite delays on the national transplantation waitlists and an inadequate supply of organs, a growing number of terminally ill Americans are turning to international underground markets and coordinators or brokers for organs. Chinese inmates on death-row and the economically disadvantaged in India and Brazil are the often compromised co-participants in the private negotiation process, which occurs outside the legal process - or in the shadows of law. These individuals supply kidneys and other organs for Americans and other Westerners willing to shop and pay in the private process. This book contends that exclusive reliance on the present altruistic tissue and organ procurement processes in the United States is not only rife with problems, but also improvident. The author explores how the altruistic approach leads to a 'black market' of organs being harvested from Third World individuals as well as compelled donations from children and incompetent persons.

Clinical decisions in modern medical practice are increasingly influenced by ethical and legal issues, but few doctors have been formally trained in medical law and ethics, and are unsure of potential sources of accessible information, which leaves them exposed to public criticism and the threat of legal action. Perioperative medicine and critical care are, by their very nature, subjects in which issues of autonomy, dignity, consent, confidentiality, medical research, life and death decision making, and the rationing of health care resources are ever-present. This book provides a straightforward but comprehensive one-stop reference and should be essential reading for all medical and allied health care professionals who encounter ethicolegal problems during their management of patients.

Violence within the family, whether directed against children, partners or elders, profoundly disturbs our notions of what the relationship between the family and the discipline of general practice should be. GPs are doctors to whole families and yet their relationships with patients are individual ones, drawing their strength from the principles of confidentiality, mutual trust and positive regard. Violence and abuse within families necessarily challenges all of these, creating a profusion of ethical, interpersonal and practical difficulties and dilemmas. At the same time the nature of general practice confers unique opportunities to deal effectively with family violence.

GPs and GP registrars will find this book an invaluable and empowering resource. It brings together a broad range of expertise and opinion from relevant specialities and disciplines and sets family violence in its historical, epidemiological and societal context. It describes in separate sections, child abuse, domestic violence and elder abuse, its presentations, diagnosis and treatment; and suggests ways forward for its prevention and early detection. It draws throughout on the experience of GPs, health visitors and social workers, providing practical safe and workable guidelines.

Family violence can present to any member of the primary care team and there is much here that will be of relevance and interest to them all.

Health care in the US and elsewhere has been rocked by economic upheaval. Cost-cuts, care-cuts, and confusion abound. Traditional tort and contract law have not kept pace. Physicians are still expected to deliver the same standard of care -- including costly resources - to everyone, regardless whether it is paid for. Health plans can now face litigation for virtually any unfortunate outcome, even those stemming from society's mandate to keep costs down while improving population health. This book cuts through the chaos and offers a clear, persuasive resolution. Part I explains why new economic realities have rendered prevailing malpractice and contract law largely anachronistic. Part II argues that pointing the legal finger of blame blindly or hastily can hinder good medical care. Instead of "whom do we want to hold liable," we should focus first on "who should be doing what, for the best delivery of health care." When things go wrong, each should be liable only for those aspects of care they could and should have controlled. Once a good division of labor is identified, what kind of liability should be imposed depends on what kind of mistake was made. Failures to exercise adequate expertise (knowledge, skill, care effort) should be addressed as torts, while failures to provide promised resources should be resolved under contract. Part III shows that this approach, though novel, fits remarkably well with basic common law doctrines, and can even enlighten ERISA issues. With extensive documentation from current case law, commentary, and empirical literature, the book will also serve as a comprehensive reference for attorneys, law professors, physicians, administrators, bioethicists, and students.

Introduces key concepts and debates in health humanities and the health professions. Keywords for Health Humanities provides a rich, interdisciplinary vocabulary for the burgeoning field of health humanities and, more broadly, for the study of medicine and health. Sixty-five entries by leading international scholars examine current practices, ideas, histories, and debates around health and illness, revealing the social, cultural, and political factors that structure health conditions and shape health outcomes. Presenting possibilities for health justice and social change, this volume exposes readers—from curious beginners to cultural analysts, from medical students to health care practitioners of all fields—to lively debates about the complexities of health and illness and their ethical and political implications. A study of the vocabulary that comprises and shapes a broad understanding of health and the practices of healthcare, Keywords for Health Humanities guides readers toward ways to communicate accurately and effectively while engaging in creative analytical thinking about health and healthcare in an increasingly complex world—one in which seemingly straightforward beliefs and decisions about individual and communal health represent increasingly contested terrain.

This book explores the way in which the law presently affects the practice of complementary medicine. It also examines the current debate about the need for greater regulation of complementary medicine. In doing so it challenges the notion that the legal and regulatory mechanisms which govern orthodox medicine constitute an appropriate model for the regulation of most complementary therapies.

A trenchant analysis of the dark side of regulatory life-making today In their seemingly relentless pursuit of life, do contemporary U.S. "biocultures"-where biomedicine extends beyond the formal institutions of the clinic, hospital, and lab to everyday cultural practices-also engage in a deadly endeavor? Challenging us to question their implications, Deadly Biocultures shows that efforts to "make live" are accompanied by the twin operation of "let die": they validate and enhance lives seen as economically viable, self-sustaining, productive, and oriented toward the future and optimism while reinforcing inequitable distributions of life based on race, class, gender, and dis/ability. Affirming life can obscure death, create deadly conditions, and even kill. Deadly Biocultures examines the affirmation to hope, target, thrive, secure, and green in the respective biocultures of cancer, race-based health, fatness, aging, and the afterlife. Its chapters focus on specific practices, technologies, or techniques that ostensibly affirm life and suggest life's inextricable links to capital but that also engender a politics of death and erasure. The authors ultimately ask: what alternative social forms and individual practices might be mapped onto or intersect with biomedicine for more equitable biofutures?

Medicaid is an important source of health coverage for millions of low-income individuals. Research on Medicaid has demonstrated that a small percentage of beneficiaries account for a disproportionately large share of Medicaid expenditures. Understanding states' expenditures for high-expenditure populations -- both those dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, and those who are Medicaid-only -- could enhance efforts to manage Medicaid expenditures. This book examines high-expenditure Medicaid-only beneficiaries, considering states' spending on them compared with all other Medicaid beneficiaries; their key characteristics; and their service usage compared with all other Medicaid-only beneficiaries. This book also provides an overview of Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH). It includes a description of the rules delineating how state DSH allotments are calculated and the exceptions to the rules, how DSH hospitals are defined, and how DSH payments are calculated.

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

The work draws together a rich tapestry of material across many different disciplines, covering the crucial relationship between medicine and law from the early apothecaries to the modern-day general practitioner. It presents an invaluable overview of the subject and offers vital background reading to anyone interested in medico-legal medicine, as well as providing a springboard for students of medicine and law interested in researching the field through its remarkable diversity of reference resources.

In "The Case against Assisted Suicide: For the Right to End-of-Life Care," Dr. Kathleen Foley and Dr. Herbert Hendin uncover why pleas for patient autonomy and compassion, often used in favor of legalizing euthanasia, do not advance or protect the rights of terminally ill patients. Incisive essays by authorities in the fields of medicine, law, and bioethics draw on studies done in the Netherlands, Oregon, and Australia by the editors and contributors that show the dangers that legalization of assisted suicide would pose to the most vulnerable patients. Thoughtful and persuasive, this book urges the medical profession to improve palliative care and develop a more humane response to the complex issues facing those who are terminally ill.

This book argues against the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia and/or physician-assisted suicide on the ground that, even if they were ethically defensible in certain 'hard cases', neither could be effectively controlled by law. It maintains that the experience of legalisation in the Netherlands, Belgium and Oregon lends support to the two 'slippery slope' arguments against legalisation, the 'empirical' and the 'logical'. The empirical argument challenges the feasibility of drafting and enforcing adequate safeguards against abuse and mistake; the logical argument shows that acceptance of the case for euthanasia in the case of suffering patients who request it logically involves acceptance of euthanasia for suffering patients who are unable to request it, such as infants and those with advanced dementia.

Why America's health care system failed so tragically during the Covid pandemic, and how the forces unleashed by the crisis could be just the medicine for its long-term cure. Covid patients overwhelmed American hospitals. The world's most advanced and expensive health care system crumbled, short of supplies and personnel. The U.S. lost more patients than any other nation during the pandemic. How could this happen? And how could this disaster lead to a more resilient, rational and equitable health care system in the future? How Covid Crashed the System answers these questions with compelling stories and wide-angle analysis. Dr. David Nash, a founder of the discipline of population health, and Charles Wohlforth, an award-winning science writer, pick up the pieces of the Covid disaster like investigators of a crashed airliner, finding the root causes of America's failure to cope, and delivering surprising answers that may reorient how you think about your own health. From the broadest, cultural flaws that disabled our health system to particular, institutional issues, America's defenses fell due to racism and poverty, combined with a culture of misguided individualism that tore communities apart. We suffered from failed leadership and crippled public health agencies, and hospitals built to make money from services, not deliver health. But How Covid Crashed the System goes beyond analyzing those problems, providing hope for change and fundamental improvement in ways that will transform Americans' health. Covid's market disruption encouraged new technology that allows for remote health care. Integrated health organizations gained ground, working to manage clients' total wellness from cradle to grave. Covid also accelerated changes in medical education, to make doctor training more equitable and better aligned to the skills we need. And Covid forced employers to accept responsibility for their workers' health in a new way, making them partners in this new movement. Using systemic analysis of the Covid crash, the authors find reasons to hope. America's health care establishment resisted reform for decades, mired in waste and avoidable errors. Now, the pandemic crisis has exposed its flaws for all to see, creating the opportunities for systemic changes. Even without new laws or government policies, America is moving toward a transformed health system responsible for our wellness. How Covid Crashed the System tells that story.

In Our Veterans, Suzanne Gordon, Steve Early, and Jasper Craven explore the physical, emotional, social, economic, and psychological impact of military service and the problems that veterans face when they return to civilian life. The authors critically examine the role of advocacy organizations, philanthropies, corporations, and politicians who purport to be "pro-veteran." They describe the ongoing debate about the cost, quality, and effectiveness of healthcare provided or outsourced by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). They also examine generational divisions and political tensions among veterans, as revealed in the tumultuous events of 2020, from Black Lives Matter protests to the Trump-Biden presidential contest. Frank and revealing, Our Veterans proposes a new agenda for veterans affairs linking service provision to veterans to the quest for broader social programs benefiting all Americans.

Mark Graber looks at the history of abortion law in action to argue that the only defensible, constitutional approach to the issue is to afford all women equal choice - abortion should remain legal or bans should be strictly enforced. Steering away from metaphysical critiques of privacy, Graber compares the philosophical, constitutional, and democratic merits of the two systems of abortion regulation witnessed in the twentieth-century: pre-Roe v. Wade statutory prohibitions on abortion and Roe's ban on significant state interference with the market for safe abortion services. He demonstrates that before Roe, pro-life measures were selectively and erratically administered, thereby subverting our constitutional commitment to equal justice. Claiming that these measures would be similarly administered if reinstated, the author seeks to increase support for keeping abortion legal, even among those who have reservations about its morality. Abortion should remain legal, Graber argues, because statutory bans on abortion have a history of being enforced in ways that intentionally discriminate against poor persons and persons of color. In the years before Roe, the same law enforcement officials who routinely ignored and sometimes assisted those physicians seeking to terminate pregnancies for their private patients too often prevented competent abortionists from offering the same services to the general public. This double standard violated the fundamental human and constitutional right of equal justice under law, a right that has powerful roots in the American political tradition and that remains a major concern of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The upheavals of the NHS reforms have caused a great deal of stress and uncertainty in primary care, and professional development and support for general practitioners needs to take account of this. This book offers a group supervision model which can be used to develop the core competencies needed for GPs to make the new primary care organisations work. The book analyses how primary care professionals have dealt with the various reforms of the past decade, and picks apart the paralysing culture of politeness, conflict avoidance and rivalry for power, to reveal how at the core of reform is the struggle for each GP to construct a new professional identity which integrates medicine, management and politics.It proposes ways GPs can benefit from these experiences to become equipped with the necessary competencies to be active members or dynamic leaders in the new primary care organisations. The doctor-patient relationship is no longer one-to-one, but located within a group matrix, in the same way that a GP is now required to work within a group framework. This book enables GPs to develop the essential group skills they now need, and on which the success of the healthcare reforms ultimately depends. 'A challenging approach to understanding and supporting the individuals who make up the primary care workforce. Gerhard Wilke has drawn on his experiences to identify the reasons behind the 'dis-ease' felt by many practitioners, and to suggest models for improving their morale. This book will be of interest to practitioners working through the challenges of continuing 'top down' reorganisation of the NHS and responding to the reconfiguration of general practice partnerships into PCGs and PCTs.'

As medical litigation continues to increase, the best defence for doctors is to be aware of, and avoid, medical errors. This book focuses on the key legal issues including medical documentation, which reduce risk and liability when handled correctly. It contains chapters on difficult patients and special issues for emergency physicians. The case-based format demonstrates clinical relevance and useful examples are drawn from office, hospital and community settings. This book is the companion volume to Learning from Medical Errors: Clinical Problems which focuses on the most common clinical situations resulting in malpractice litigation. Learning from Medical Errors: Legal Issues is vital reading for all doctors, medical lecturers and teachers and medical lawyers.

Depression is amorphous. It defies easy generalization, and eludes medical and legal categories. Is it part of the self, or its predator? Can a sufferer be held responsible for their actions? This edited collection provides a holistic study of a protean illness. If the law is to regulate the lives of those who suffer from depression, it is vital that lawyers understand the condition. Drawing upon a wide-ranging expertise, this volume looks at depression from four viewpoints: that of the sufferer, the clinician, the ethicist, and the lawyer. Topics covered include the cultural history of depression; causes, epidemiology, and diagnosis; the autonomy debate; criminal responsibility; public health law; depression in the workplace; depression and children; and assisted suicide. First-hand accounts from sufferers are followed by contributions from clinicians who say what depression is, outline its demography and therapeutic options, and indicate the legal and ethical problems that trouble them the most. The essays then go on to explore legal and ethical questions in depth. This collection is essential reading for lawyers seeking a broader understanding of depression, and non-lawyers seeking an insight into the difficulty law has engaging with the condition.