Synopses & Reviews
A practical, insightful guide to the ethical standards of healthcareIn your career as a medical professional, you'll be responsible for convincing patients and their family members of the best course of action and treatment to follow. Packed with helpful information, this hands-on, friendly guide arms you with the knowledge you need to make the best ethical decisions in various situations — quickly and confidently.
Medical ethics 101 — discover how to protect your patients' privacy, how to communicate with them, and your obligation to uphold their rights
Respect your patients' wishes — find out how to work with patients who refuse medical care, disagree with your opinion, or have personal beliefs that limit the medical treatment they are willing to receive
The circle of life — get guidance on how to apply medical ethics to topics such as abortion, parental involvement with minors, assisted reproduction, end-of-life care, and euthanasia
Advancing medical knowledge — see what it takes to conduct ethical clinical research on animals and humans, what is required to enroll patients in clinical trials, and the ethical implications that arise in stem cell and genetic research
Open the book and find:
Principles that guide ethical medical decisions
The distinctions and connections between ethics and morality
Day-to-day ethical challenges in the life of a medical professional
Information about managing your practice and working with other healthcare providers
Advice for disclosing medical errors to patients and colleagues
Tips for talking to patients about vaccination and organ donation
High-profile ethics cases that have shaped the practice of medicine
Learn to:
Guide patients and their families through treatment options and potential outcomes
Quickly and confidently make the right moral and ethical choices
Apply ethics to controversial issues
Synopsis
A practical, insightful guide to the moral and ethical standards of healthcare
Succeeding in the healthcare field means more than just making a diagnosis and writing a prescription. Healthcare professionals are responsible for convincing patients and their family members of the best course of action and treatments to follow, while knowing how to make the right moral and ethical choices, and so much more. Unlike daunting and expensive texts, Medical Ethics For Dummies offers an accessible and affordable course supplement for anyone studying medical or biomedical ethics.
• Follows typical medical and biomedical ethics courses
• Covers real ethical dilemmas doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers may face
• Includes moral issues surrounding stem cell research, genetic engineering, euthanasia, and more
Packed with helpful information, Medical Ethics For Dummies arms aspiring medical professionals with the philosophical and practical foundation for advancing in a field where critical ethical and moral decisions need to be rapidly and convincingly made.
About the Author
Jane Runzheimer, MD, is a family physician who has served on the Ethics Committee of Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
Linda Johnson Larsen has written 24 books, many of which have an emphasis on health, and has been a patient advocate for her husband and several family members.
Table of Contents
Introduction.Part I: Medical Ethics, or Doing the Right Thing.
Chapter 1: What Are Medical Ethics?
Chapter 2: Morality in Medicine.
Chapter 3: The Provider-Patient Relationship.
Chapter 4: Outside the Examining Room: Running an Ethical Practice.
Chapter 5: Learning from Mistakes: Disclosing Medical Errors.
Part II: A Patient's Right to Request, Receive, and Refuse Care.
Chapter 6: The Ethical Challenges in Distributing Basic Healthcare.
Chapter 7: When Spirituality and Cultural Beliefs Affect Care.
Chapter 8: Parental Guidance and Responsibilities.
Part III: Ethics at the Beginning and End of Life.
Chapter 9: Two Lives, One Patient: Pregnancy Rights and Issues.
Chapter 10: When Science Supersedes Sex: Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy.
Chapter 11: Walking a Fine Line: Examining the Ethics of Abortion.
Chapter 12: Determining Death: Not an Event, but a Process.
Chapter 13: Death with Dignity: The Right to Appropriate End-of-Life Care.
Part IV: Advancing Medical Knowledge with Ethical Clinical Research.
Chapter 14: Toward Trials without Error: The Evolution of Ethics in Clinical Research.
Chapter 15: Beyond Guinea Pigs: Anatomy of an Ethical Clinical Trial.
Chapter 16: Research in Special Populations.
Chapter 17: It’s All in the Genes: The Ethics of Stem Cell and Genetic Research.
Part V: The Part of Tens.
Chapter 18: Ten Ethical Issues to Address with Your Patients.
Chapter 19: Ten High-Profi le Medical Ethics Cases.
Chapter 20: Almost Ten Ethical Issues for the Future.
Index.