Critiquing many areas of medical practice and research whilst making constructive suggestions about medical education, this book extends the scope of medical ethics beyond sole concern with regulation.

Illustrating some humanistic ways of understanding patients, this volume explores the connections between medical ethics, healthcare and subjects, such as philosophy, literature, creative writing and medical history and how they can affect the attitudes of doctors towards patients and the perceptions of medicine, health and disease which have become part of contemporary culture.

The authors examine a range of ideas in medical practice and research, including:

• the idea that patient status or the doctor/patient relationship can be understood via quantitative scales
• the illusion fostered by medical ethics that doctors, unlike those in other professions, are uniquely beneficent and indeed altruistic.

An excellent text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of law, medical ethics and medical healthcare law, Bioethics and the Humanities shows the real ethical achievements, problems and half-truths of contemporary medicine.

Critiquing many areas of medical practice and research whilst making constructive suggestions about medical education, this book extends the scope of medical ethics beyond sole concern with regulation.

Illustrating some humanistic ways of understanding patients, this volume explores the connections between medical ethics, healthcare and subjects, such as philosophy, literature, creative writing and medical history and how they can affect the attitudes of doctors towards patients and the perceptions of medicine, health and disease which have become part of contemporary culture.

The authors examine a range of ideas in medical practice and research, including:

• the idea that patient status or the doctor/patient relationship can be understood via quantitative scales
• the illusion fostered by medical ethics that doctors, unlike those in other professions, are uniquely beneficent and indeed altruistic.

An excellent text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of law, medical ethics and medical healthcare law, Bioethics and the Humanities shows the real ethical achievements, problems and half-truths of contemporary medicine.

A book for nurses, doctors and all who provide end of life care, this essential volume guides readers through the ethical complexities of such care, including current policy initiatives, and encourages debate and discussion on their controversial aspects. Divided into two parts, it introduces and explains clinical decision-making processes about which there is broad consensus, in line with guidance documents issued by WHO, BMA, GMC, and similar bodies. The changing political and social context where 'patient choice' has become a central idea, and the broadened scope of patients' best interests, have added to the complexity of decision-making in end of life care. The authors discuss issues widely encountered by GPs, nurses, and hospital clinicians. These include patient choice, consent, life prolonging treatment, and symptom relief including sedation. Part two explores the more controversial current end of life care initiatives, such as advance care planning, preferred place of care and death, euthanasia and assisted suicide, extended ideas of 'best interests', and the view that there are therapeutic duties to the relatives of patients. Throughout their discussion the authors draw attention to loose ends and contradictions in some of the proposals. Examining the current policy of consumerist choice, they reject its place in the health service, proposing a realistic, fair, humane, and widely adoptable system of end of life care.
As knowledge of ethical theories is required in training courses, and the vocabulary of ethical theory is widespread in current discussions, a substantial appendix on ethical theories and terms is available online.
Written by the same authors as The Philosophy of Palliative Care: Critique and Reconstruction, which won the Medical Journalists' Association Specialist Book Award 2007, this new book for non-specialists is essential reading for all health care professionals involved in providing end of life care.

Palliative care is a rapidly growing area within health care and one in which there are many ethical dilemmas. Chronically and terminally ill patients increasingly wish to take control of their own lives and deaths, resources are scarce and technology has created controversial life-prolonging treatment. This book has been written by a clinician and a teacher and writer of health care ethics to provide all those who care for the terminally ill - doctors, nurses, social workers, physiotherapists, clergy and other carers - with the concepts and principles to assist them in difficult decisions. A central theme, that technical expertise must be controlled by humane, non-technical judgements, runs through the challenging and thoughtful text. Palliative Care Ethics, in this second edition, is now more user- friendly and includes genuine case histories to illustrate ethical issues in the real world. The authors have expanded the section on rationing in respnse to the changing health care environment and confront the issues of patient rights to a far greater extent..There is also a new chapter covering terminally ill children. As the philosophy of palliation is increasingly recognised to be important from diagnosis, the coverage of more general cancer care ethics has been much increased. 'An excellent book' Palliative Medicine 'A thorough reference for practitioners of palliative care' Toronto Medical Journal 'The authors tackle many delicate concerns with professional and human integrity' Journal of Medical Ethic

Medicine and the arts have in common a concern for all aspects of people's lives. This delightful anthology celebrates the many ways in which they interact. Robin Downie has mixed together a rich concoction of poems, stories, prose extracts, music, paintings, and drawings which illustrate the fundamental issues of birth, life, and death.

From reviews of the hardback edition The best presents are often those you want to buy for yourself and part with only grudgingly. The Healing Arts falls headlong into this class. New Scientist This book is really much better than any anthology has a right to be... remarkably handsome: large format, good paper, spacious layouts, colour plates, and photographs... but the most striking aspect is the quality and variety of the selected items, and the way in which they flow and are mutually reinforcing.' Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London ' a splendid anthology ... Downie's anthology is interesting, varied ... and fun to dip into.' The Lancet Here's some cultural diversion for anyone on the mend from the surgeon's knife or fighting illness, or indeed for the hypochondriac. Read Betjeman on nurses, Larkin on ambulances, and C S Lewis on grief. And more in the same vein.' Focus ... a delightful collection of poetry, essay, and musical score, punctuated by carefully selected drawings and paintings. It is undoubtedly a delightful gift for almost anyone in medicine, and a goodly number outside the profession. British Journal of Anaesthesia He has compiled a beautiful and inspiring collection of poems, drawings, paintings, cartoons, music and excerpts from books and journals to give pleasure, to heal and inform, and to "stretch the imagination, deepen the sympathy and enrich perspectives" ... It superbly fulfills Downie's goal of bringing pleasure, stretching the imagination, and deepening sympathy. I strongly recommend it to those of you who value the arts and have some association with the medical profession. The Medical Humanities Review This book is a gem which will have wide appeal.... It breaks new ground in using art, prose and poetry to explore interactions between medicine and the arts. Journal of Medical Ethics

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the need for a fresh look at health and health care. This book offers a philosophical critique of medicine as applied science, but more positively it stresses the social causes of disease and argues for greater equity in the distribution of resources and the benefits of a wider evidence-base for medical treatments. The suggested approach requires a new direction for medical ethics, one which uses the arts and humanities and leads to a revised idea of medical education and medical professionalism. The suggested approach implies a move away from the individualistic philosophy of medicine towards a new aim - community-based quality of life. The achievement of this aim certainly requires an expansion of public health medicine and health promotion but it also requires medical co-operation with the many arts and other community agencies concerned with our health and well-being. Doctors and other health professionals must work through the community rather than on it.

There is a widespread view that modern medicine is primarily a scientific enterprise and that the decisions of clinicians follow from evidence-based science. In terms of this view the need for clinical judgement is minimal. The aims of this book are to make a case for the centrality and irreplaceability of clinical judgement, to identify the elements of good clinical judgement, and to suggest how these might be developed by using the humanities in medical undergraduate and postgraduate education. The authors argue that good clinical judgement requires both technical evidence and a humane attitude. But technical evidence is not always quantifiable or even scientific; it can be like that of the detective or the literary scholar. A humane attitude involves ethical sensitivity, but also a broad educated perspective which can be derived from the arts. The authors illustrate their argument by examining decisions made by doctors in clinical situations, in public health, and (in a chapter contributed by a hospital consultant) in resource management. About the authors: Robert S. Downie is Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University since 1969. He is a member of the BMA Ethics Committee and co-editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics. He has published extensively in the field of medical ethics. Jane MacNaughton has recently taken the position of Director of Centre for Arts, Humanities, Health and Medicine at the University of Durham. Previously she was Clinical Lecturer in General Practice at Glasgow University and a part-time GP.