Healthy Respect: Ethics in Health Care
R. S. Downie, K. C. Calman, Ruth A. K. Schröck, and Malcolm Macnaughton
Abstract
In recent years doctors, nurses, and all health care professionals have become increasingly aware of the complexity of the moral dilemmas that can be created by caring. The central theme of this book is that these dilemmas, whether found in consulting rooms, hospital wards, dental surgeries, social work departments, or managers' offices cannot be resolved solely by the expertise derived from the social sciences. There is no escape from a professional's own moral and value judgements. This book offers an introduction to moral concepts and values, and illustrates how they can be identified, anal ... More
In recent years doctors, nurses, and all health care professionals have become increasingly aware of the complexity of the moral dilemmas that can be created by caring. The central theme of this book is that these dilemmas, whether found in consulting rooms, hospital wards, dental surgeries, social work departments, or managers' offices cannot be resolved solely by the expertise derived from the social sciences. There is no escape from a professional's own moral and value judgements. This book offers an introduction to moral concepts and values, and illustrates how they can be identified, analysed, and applied in particular situations. These issues are discussed in Part 1 in what is basically a philosophical context. Part 2 discusses specific topics, such as consent, confidentiality, the giving or withholding of information, and the economics of health care. Medical problems such as resuscitation, artificial reproduction, terminal care, and research and testing of drugs are carefully analysed. Each chapter in Part 2 offers further questions for debate, and there are references back to the philosophical underpinning in Part 1.
Keywords:
scientific understanding,
ethics,
responsibility,
argument,
learning ethics,
teaching ethics,
teams,
artificial conception,
terminal care,
public health,
economics
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 1994 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780192624086 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2009 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780192624086.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
R. S. Downie, author
University of Glasgow
K. C. Calman, author
Department of Health, London
Ruth A. K. Schröck, author
Malcolm Macnaughton, author
More
Less
