Medical Ethics

Health care providers and ethics committees alike are facing an increasing number of difficult medical decisions. To assist them, this anthology serves as a practical guide addressing such key issues as: how to discuss withdrawing nutrition and hydration with a patient's surrogate decision-maker; how to promote a patient's dignity even when restraint must be used; how to deal with an impaired colleague; how to help patients and families talk about pain, suffering, and death; how to promote a patient's trust in an era of managed care; and, how to help parents make painful decisions for their new-borns. "Medical Ethics" provides both a theoretical and an empirical foundation for addressing such perplexing and emotionally difficult issues. Fifty-five articles are divided into eighteen sections dealing with ethical theory, geriatric ethics, end-of-life issues, informed consent, pain management, health law, AIDS, paediatric ethics, transplantation, managed care, resource allocation, substance abuse, and other relevant topics. This collection goes beyond all other introductory texts in medical ethics by including several of the most important empirical studies published in the past ten years and exploring such issues as Oregon's assisted-suicide law, the lack of pain management provided to the elderly, and how the public perceives the fairness of liver allocation to children in transplant situations. This practical guide to many of today's ethical dilemmas will be an essential tool for all health care providers.