Issues in medical ethics are rarely out of the media and it is an area of ethics that has particular interest for the general public as well as the medical practitioner. This short and accessible introduction deals with moral questions such as euthanasia as well as asking how health care resources can be distributed fairly.

"Doctors have been concerned with ethics since the earliest days of medical practice. Traditionally, medical practitioners have been expected to be motivated by a desire to help their patients. Ethical codes and systems, such as the Hippocratic Oath, have emphasised this. During the latter half of the 20th century, advances in medical science, in conjunction with social and political changes, meant that the accepted conventions of the doctor/patient relationship were increasingly being questioned. After the Nuremberg Trials, in which the crimes of Nazi doctors, among others, were exposed, it became clear that doctors cannot be assumed to be good simply by virtue of their profession. Not only this, but doctors who transgress moral boundaries can harm people in the most appalling ways"--

This book discusses medicine from an ethical perspective, whereas books on medical ethics more commonly present ethics from a bio-medical standpoint. The book is divided into 23 chapters. The introductory chapters present some basic concepts of medical ethics, such as the relation between the legal system and ethics, ethical documents, ethical theories, and ethical analysis. The following chapters address issues of importance in all fields of medicine: respecting autonomy, communication, relations within a healthcare team, professional malpractice, limited resources, and the portrait of a physician. In turn, the third part of the book focuses on ethical aspects in a broad range of medical activities – preventive medicine, human reproduction, genetics, pediatrics, intensive care, palliative medicine, clinical research, unproven methods in diagnostics and treatment, and the role of physicians who aren’t directly responsible for patient care. The last part presents students’ seminars with case stories. The book offers a valuable resource for physicians of all specialties, students of medicine, professionals, and students from other fields devoted to human health, journalists, and general readers with an interest in medicine.

This instant gold standard title is a major contribution to the field of clinical medical ethics and will be used widely for reference and teaching purposes for years to come. Throughout his career, Mark Siegler, MD, has written on topics ranging from the teaching of clinical medical ethics to end-of-life decision-making and the ethics of advances in technology. With more than 200 journal publications and 60 book chapters published in this area over the course of his illustrious career, Dr. Siegler has become the pre-eminent scholar and teacher in the field. Indeed his work has had a profound impact on a range of therapeutic areas, especially internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, oncology, and medical education. Having grown steadily in importance the last 30 years, clinical ethics examines the practical, everyday ethical issues that arise in encounters among patients, doctors, nurses, allied health workers, and health care institutions. The goal of clinical ethics is to improve patient care and patient outcomes, and almost every large hospital now has an ethics committee or ethics consultation service to help resolve clinical ethical problems; and almost every medical organization now has an ethics committee and code of ethics. Most significantly, clinical ethics discussions have become a part of the routine clinical discourse that occurs in outpatient and inpatient clinical settings across the country. This seminal collection of 46 landmark works by Dr. Siegler on the topic is organized around five themes of foundational scholarship: restoring and transforming the ethical basis of modern clinical medicine, the doctor-patient relationship, education and professionalism, end-of-life care, and clinical innovation. With introductory perspectives by a group of renowned scholars in medicine, Clinical Medical Ethics: Landmark Works of Mark Siegler, MD explains the field authoritatively and comprehensively and will be of invaluable assistance to all clinicians and scholars concerned with clinical ethics.

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.