Many of the chapters relate to medical research as well as medical procedures, with the informed consent issue in particular affecting both human beings involved in medical research and those facing a medical crisis and wanting to now what their treatment will entail.
Throughout, the authors present ways of thinking about these ethical issues and also encourage medical personnel to consider these matters and to have a means for making decisions in mind at all times and to follow certain procedures in analyzing a situation and making a determination as to what behavior is acceptable and what is not. Some of the issues discussed are more controversial than others, with abortion being perhaps...
The
death and dying issue is another with two clear positions polarizing the
argument and with a range of possibilities between the two extremes. Some
ethical standards are set out clearly by
professional organizations and medical institutions, while other issues are left for individual doctors and
nurses to decide, often without clear guidance even though they might prefer to have some standard by which to come to a decision. The ethical ideas discussed by these authors could serve as well to help shape those professional and institutional standards, but it is the individual doctor and nurse that need the guidance most. This book does much to help point them in the right direction and give them the concepts they can use in their own practice as new situations arise. The advice is invaluable and also clear and to the point, which is precisely what people need when deciding between different ethical possibilities such as they might face in the course of a day's work.
Works Cited
Garrett, Thomas M., Harold W. Baillie, and Rosellen M. Garrett.
Health Care Ethics: Principles and Problems. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 2001.
