Product Description

This volume illustrates the central importance of diversity of human values throughout healthcare. The readings are organized around the main stages of the clinical encounter from the patient′s perspective. They run from staying well and ′first contact′ through to either recovery or to long–term illness, death and dying.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111630 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
"It is rare to find a collection of readings that offers a new perspective on healthcare ethics, but this one does. Fulford, Dickenson, and Murray have put together an inspired anthology that reflects diversity, enhanced by the original approach in the editors′ framing of the issues. It will be an invaluable resource in bioethics." Ruth Chadwick, Lancaster University

"This rich and exciting collection highlights the diversity of values among patients and professionals in healthcare. It effectively uses narrative accounts along with more formal approaches to illustrate and illuminate diverse values in the clinical encounter. I strongly recommend this volume, and I look forward to using it in my courses."James F. Childress, University of Virginia

"A fascinating kaleidoscope of thoughts, analysis, and ideas covering a wide range of ethical issues." Kenneth C. Calman, University of Durham

"This is a feast of a book – poems, philosophical essays, memoirs, stories about patients and doctoring, even a little social science. It demonstrates that ′healthcare ethics,′ unlike the medico–legal kind, must draw on a knowledge of the human condition and the variety of values brought to illness and care by people on both ends of the stethoscope." Kathryn Montgomery, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago

"The range of styles of contributions from the short poems to the evidence–based pieces makes this a very different text. This volume certainly makes a good introduction to healthcare ethics... a welcome and refreshing addition to libraries and reading lists for those with an interest in bioethics." International Journal of Nursing Studies, Vol. 40, 2003

From the Back Cover
This volume illustrates the central importance of diversity of human values throughout healthcare. The readings are organized around the main stages of the clinical encounter from the patient′s perspective. They run from staying well and "first contact" through to either recovery or long–term illness, death, and dying.

An introductory section opens up crucial issues of methodology and of practical application in this highly innovative approach to the role of ethics in healthcare. The contributions include selections from literature and poetry, canonical and newly commissioned articles, and first–hand narrative by patients, care givers, and professionals. The readings speak volumes to the diversity of human values operative in healthcare.

The volume as a whole conveys the message that these values are far more diverse than any of us normally recognize. Raising awareness of this diversity is the first step to developing a practically effective healthcare ethics.

About the Author

K. W. M. (Bill) Fulford is Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health at the University of Warwick, and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the University of Oxford. He is the founder and editor of the first international journal for philosophy and mental health, PPP: Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology. He has published widely on philosophical and ethical aspects of mental health, in particular Moral Theory and Medical Practice (1989).

Donna L Dickenson is John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham, UK, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics, the first such institute in Britain. Her recent books include Property, Women and Politics (1997), In Two Minds: Case Studies in Psychiatric Ethics (with Bill Fulford, 2000), and The Cambridge Medical Ethics Workbook Ethics (with Michael Parker, 2001).

Thomas H. Murray is President of The Hastings Center in Garrison, New York. He is a founding editor of the journal Medical Humanities Review, author of The Worth of a Child (1996), and editor, with Maxwell J. Mehlman, of The Encyclopedia of Ethical, Legal and Policy Issues in Biotechnology (2000).