Medical ethics is the disciplined study of medical morality, with two goals: critically appraising current medical morality and identifying how it should be improved. Medical morality has three components. Physicians, patients, communities, and policy makers have beliefs about what is good and bad character, and right and wrong behavior, in patient care, biomedical research, medical education, and health policy. On the basis of these beliefs, physicians, patients, communities, and policy makers make judgments about how physicians ought to conduct themselves in patient care, research, education, and the formation and implementation of health policy. They then act on their judgments. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Medical Ethics contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on ethical reasoning and its key components; medical ethics, professional medical ethics, and bioethics; and topics in clinical ethics, research ethics, and healthcare policy ethics. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about medical ethics.

With a "big tent" understanding of bioethics, this dictionary provides definitions of 755 important terms drawn from a wide variety of contexts: medicine, nursing, behavioral health, forensic science, research ethics, public safety, social work, and epidemiology, on the one hand; bioethics, ethics, law, history, philosophy, and theology, on the other. Bioethical approaches (such as Principlism) and ethical categories (Fallibilism) are given their due, as are the major theoretical orientations (Feminist Bioethics). Terms from outside the USA, especially the UK, are in evidence. Many Greek and a few Latin equivalents are provided; for example, "cloning (κλών = twig or branch)." Cross references abound. That's Part 1. Part 2 offers single-paragraph introductions, 95 in all, to Historical Figures from a number of fields: medicine and nursing, dentistry and pharmacy, certainly; but there are also philosophers, scientists, environmentalists, public health pioneers, noteworthy psychologists and psychiatrists--along with many others. The religions are not neglected: important Christian thinkers are represented along with nine famous clinicians from the Islamic Golden Age. This resource offers the definitions of important terms and the identifications of historical figures that everyone interested in bioethics should have access to.

Provides detailed discussions on the history and moral, medical, and ethical implications of recent scientific advances and developments, covering topics from abortion and animal experimentation to tissue transplants and unqualified practitioners

A physician says, "I have an ethical obligation never to cause the death of a patient," another responds, "My ethical obligation is to relieve pain even if the patient dies." The current argument over the role of physicians in assisting patients to die constantly refers to the ethical duties of the profession. References to the Hippocratic Oath are often heard. Many modern problems, from assisted suicide to accessible health care, raise questions about the traditional ethics of medicine and the medical profession. However, few know what the traditional ethics are and how they came into being. This book provides a brief tour of the complex story of medical ethics evolved over centuries in both Western and Eastern culture. It sets this story in the social and cultural contexts in which the work of healing was practiced and suggests that, behind the many different perceptions about the ethical duties of physicians, certain themes appear constantly, and may be relevant to modern debates. The book begins with the Hippocratic medicine of ancient Greece, moves through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe, and the long history of Indian 7nd Chinese medicine, ending as the problems raised modern medical science and technology challenge the settled ethics of the long tradition.

A practical and thought provoking introduction to the most important ethical issues in medicine today. Over 700 entries, from short essays to brief definitions of key terms and concepts, have been contributed by leading clinicians and medical ethicists.

Ethical issues in modern medicine are of great concern and interest to all physicians and health-care providers throughout the world, as well as to the public at large. Jewish scholars and ethicists have discussed medical ethics throughout Jewish history.