Weigh pivotal healthcare ethics, law, and public policy issues that resulted in tipping-point legal actions Weighing the ethical considerations in healthcare and drug issues can be emotionally difficult and mentally challenging. Drugs, Ethics, and Quality of Life: Cases and Materials on Ethical, Legal, and Public Policy Dilemmas in Medicine and Pharmacy Practice is a fascinating casebook that clearly discusses the most contentious ethical conflicts that resulted in legal actions. This easy-to-read text provides all sides of controversial real-life cases that provoke spirited debate while teaching the fundamentals of pharmacy law and ethics. The book is a unique exploration into the basic principles of bioethics, end of life care, and drug research. Drugs, Ethics, and Quality of Life explains in detail the concepts of ethics, quality of life, beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice. Recent cases provide illuminating backdrops for the exploration of these concepts, making them easily understood. A special introduction includes important information about ethics and the pharmaceutical code of ethics. Two appendixes provide further opportunities for discussion and the examination of law and decisions, and resources about drug use decisions and situations. This thought-provoking textbook plainly shows the crucial role ethics plays in today’s society. Ethical topics explored in Drugs, Ethics, and Quality of Life includes legal cases on: tobacco COX-2 inhibitors medical marijuana the “morning after” pill and other emergency contraceptives pain medications and palliative care drugs physician-assisted suicide drug use in medically futile situations gene therapy Drugs, Ethics, and Quality of Life is valuable, insightful reading as well as a good adjunct text for pharmacy students, pharmacists, medical students, physicians, bio

Challenges our understanding of health, risks, facts, and clinical trials [Payot]

A Doody's Core Title for 2023! The go-to textbook on the increasingly important and rapidly evolving topic of medical ethics Ethical issues are embedded in every clinical encounter between patients and clinicians. In order to practice excellent clinical care, clinicians must understand ethical issues such as informed consent, decisional capacity, surrogate decision making, truth telling, confidentiality, privacy, the distinction between research and clinical care, and end-of-life care. This popular, clinically-oriented guide provides crystal-clear case-based coverage of the ethical situations encountered in everyday medical practice. Clinical Ethics introduces the proven Four Box Method—a much-needed pattern for collecting, sorting, and ordering the facts of a clinical ethical problem. This easy-to-apply system is based on simple questions about medical indications, patient preferences, quality of life, and contextual features that explain clinical ethics and help clinicians formulate a sound diagnosis and treatment strategy. In each chapter, the authors discuss case examples and provide analysis, comments, and specific recommendations. The book is divided into the four topics that constitute the essential ethical structure of every clinical encounter: Medical Indications, Preferences of Patients Quality of Life Contextual Features

For decades, medical professionals have betrayed the public's trust by accepting various benefits from the pharmaceutical industry. Both drug company representatives and doctors employ artful spin to portray this behavior positively to the public, and to themselves. In Hooked, Howard Brody argues that we can neither understand the problem, nor propose helpful solutions until we identify the many levels of activity connecting these purportedly noble industries. We can pass laws and enact regulations, but ultimately the medical profession must take responsibility for its own integrity. Hooked is a wake-up call for anyone expecting high quality, ethical medical care.

Clinical Ethics introduces the four-topics method of approaching ethical problems (i.e., medical indications, patient preferences, quality of life, and contextual features). Each of the four chapters represents one of the topics. In each chapter, the authors discuss cases and provide comments and recommendations. The four-topics method is an organizational process by which clinicians can begin to understand the complexities involved in ethical cases and can proceed to find a solution for each case.

"[This book is] the most authoritative assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of recent trends toward the commercialization of health care," says Robert Pear of The New York Times. This major study by the Institute of Medicine examines virtually all aspects of for-profit health care in the United States, including the quality and availability of health care, the cost of medical care, access to financial capital, implications for education and research, and the fiduciary role of the physician. In addition to the report, the book contains 15 papers by experts in the field of for-profit health care covering a broad range of topicsâ€"from trends in the growth of major investor-owned hospital companies to the ethical issues in for-profit health care. "The report makes a lasting contribution to the health policy literature." â€"Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.