Intensive Care

by Zussman, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780226996356
• ISBN10: 0226996352
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

In riveting case studies, Robert Zussman describes how medical decisions in ICUs are considered and reconsidered, made and remade, negotiated and renegotiated. He concentrates on the practice of medical ethics, on the ways in which right and wrong are interpreted and used in the ward--how definitions of right and wrong emerge from the social situations of patients, families, doctors, and nurses and from the workings of hospitals and the courts. His book is a portrait of the way careful planning is undermined by the unpredictability of illness and the persistence of self-interest, by high principle and curious compromise.

Author Biography

Elizabeth A. Kaye specializes in communications as part of her coaching and consulting practice. She has edited Requirements for Certification since the 2000-01 edition.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Medical Ethics and the Medical Profession

Intensive Care

The Moral Order of Intensive Care

The Patient

Doctors: The Banality of Heroism

The Nurse's Dilemma

Patienthood and the Culture of Rights

Patients and Families

Medical Ethics: Triage and the Limitation of Treatment

"Penguins in the Basement"

Uncertainty, the Social Organization of Medicine, and Limitation of Treatment

Withholding, Withdrawing, and the "Terminal" Patient

Ethics, Families, and Technical Reason

The "Do Not Resuscitate" Order as Ritual

"A Legal Thing"

The Last Bed 15: Medicine's Two Cultures

On Method

General Index

Index of Doctors, Nurses, Patients, and Families of Patients

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.