The Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics

by Rhodes, Rosamond; Francis, Leslie P.; Silvers, Anita

• ISBN13: 9781405125833
• ISBN10: 1405125837
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-01-08
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

The continuing advance of biomedical science heightens our concern about the welfare of patients and the ethical practice of health care professionals. Some of these worries turn on whether new technology-related issues are similar to traditional moral problems, or, instead, are of a different order or kind. Others are driven by commitments to liberty and justice that may call for new approaches to patients' rights. Attempts to answer these questions have sparked heated controversies: even basic concepts are subject to dramatically opposing understandings. The Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics enters this arena as a helpful tool for navigating the complex literature and diverse views on the key issues in medical ethics. Employing crucial distinctions between the personal decisions of patients, the professional decisions of individual health care providers, and political decisions about public policy, the chapters in the volume address the most central and controversial topics in medical ethics. This book is an indispensable reference for anyone who wants to understand the field today and grapple with the challenges and controversies it presents.

Author Biography

Rosamond Rhodes is Professor of Medical Education and Director of Bioethics Education at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate School, CUNY.

Leslie P. Francis is Professor of Philosophy and the Alfred C. Emery Professor of Law, Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Utah, and Adjunct Professor in the Division of Medical Ethics, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine.

Anita Silvers is Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Individual Decisions About Clinical Issues

Patient Decisions

Autonomy, the Good Life and Controversial Choices

Individual Responsibility and Reproduction

Patient and Family Decisions about Life-Extension and Death

Individual Decisions of Physicians and Other Health Care Professionals

The Professional Responsibilities of Medicine

Truth telling

Medical Confidentiality

Patient Competence and Surrogate Decision-Making

Ending Life

Discrimination in Medical Practice: Justice and the Obligations of Health Care Providers to Disadvantaged Patients

Institutional Practices, Ethics, and the Physician

Legislative and Judicial Decisions About Social Policy

Liberty

Reproductive Choice

Public Policy and Ending Lives

Drug Legalization

Selling Organs, Gametes, and Surrogacy Services

The Patient as Victim and Vector: The Challenge of Infectious Disease for Bioethics

Uses of Science in Medical Ethics

Justice

Allocation of Scarce Resources

Just Caring: The Challenges of Priority-Setting in Public Health

Justice and the Financing of Health Care

Judgment and Justice: Evaluating Health Care for Chronically Ill and Disabled Patients

Justice in Research on Human Subjects

Ethics of Disclosure Following a Medical Injury: Time for Reform?

Pre-existing Conditions: Genetic Testing, Causation and the Justice of Medical Insurance

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.