"Thoughtful, thought-provoking . . . May well become a classic in thesense of establishing a new kuhnian paradigm, a philosophy of medicine."--Annals of Internal Medicine

A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice: Toward a Philosophy and Ethic of the Healing Professions

Pellegrino, Edmund D.

Thomasma, David C.

Oxford University Press

Medical Books

Medicine

In this companion volume to their 1981 work, A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice, Pellegrino and Thomasma examine the principle of beneficence and its role in the practice of medicine. Their analysis, which is grounded in a thorough-going philosophy of medicine, addresses a wide array of practical and ethical concerns that are a part of health care decision-making today. Among these issues are the withdrawing and withholding of nutrition and hydration, competency assessment, the requirements for valid surrogate decision-making, quality-of-life determinations, the allocation of scarce health care resources, medical gatekeeping, and for-profit medicine. The authors argue for the restoration of beneficence (re-interpreted as beneficence-in-trust) to its place as the fundamental principle of medical ethics. They maintain that to be guided by beneficence a physician must perform a right and good healing action which is consonant with the individual patient's values. In order to act in the patient's best interests, or the patient's good, the physician and patient must discern what that good is. This knowledge is gained only through a process of dialogue between patient and/or family and physician which respects and honors the patient's autonomous self-understanding and choice in the matter of treatment options. This emphasis on a dialogical discernment of the patient's good rejects the assumption long held in medicine that what is considered to be the medical good is necessarily the good for this patient. In viewing autonomy as a necessary condition of beneficence, the authors move beyond a trend in the medical ethics literature which identifies beneficence with paternalism. In their analysis of beneficence, the authors reject the current emphasis on rights- and duty-based ethical systems in favor of a virtue-based theory which is grounded in the physician-patient relationship. This book's provocative contributions to medical ethics will be of great interest not only to physicians and other health professionals, but also to ethicists, students, patients, families, and all others concerned with the relationship of professional to patient and patient to professional in health care today.

For the Patient's Good: The Restoration of Beneficence in Health Care

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

In recent years, virtue theories have enjoyed a renaissance of interest among general and medical ethicists. This book offers a virtue-based ethic for medicine, the health professions, and health care. Beginning with a historical account of the concept of virtue, the authors construct a theory of the place of the virtues in medical practice. Their theory is grounded in the nature and ends of medicine as a special kind of human activity. The concepts of virtue, the virtues, and the virtuous physician are examined along with the place of the virtues of trust, compassion, prudence, justice, courage, temperance, and effacement of self-interest in medicine. The authors discuss the relationship between and among principles, rules, virtues, and the philosophy of medicine. They also address the difference virtue-based ethics makes in confronting such practical problems as care of the poor, research with human subjects, and the conduct of the healing relationship. This book with the author's previous volumes, A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice and For the Patient's Good, are part of their continuing project of developing a coherent moral philosophy of medicine.

Virtues in Medical Practice

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

This book arises from a two-fold conviction. The first is that autonomy, despite recent critiques about its importance in bioethics and philosophy of medicine, and the traditional resistance of medicine to its "intrusion" into the doctor-patient relation, is a fundamental building block of an individual's identity and mechanisms for dealing with illness, disease, and incapacity. As such it is an essential component in the health care professional's armamentarium employed to bring about healing. Furthennore, it functions in a similar way to assist the health professional in his or her relations to the sick and injured. The second conviction follows from the fITst. Autonomy is far more complex than appears from the philosophical use of the concept. In this conviction we join those who have criticized the over-reliance on autonomy in modem, secular bioethics originating in the United States, but gaining ascendancy in other cultures. This critique relies on appeals to the richer contexts of persons' lives. Elsewhere the contemporary critique of autonomy appears in a variety of alternative ethical models like narrative ethics, casuist ethics, and contextualism. Indeed, postmodern criticism of all bioethics argues that there is no defensible foundation for claims that one ought to respect autonomy or any other principle as a way of ensuring that one is ethical.

Autonomy and Clinical Medicine - Renewing the Health Professional Relation with the Patient (INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF ETHICS, LAW, AND THE NEW)

Bergsma, J.

Science & Math

Springer

Expounds on the relationship between theory and practice as applied, adjusted, and inaugurated in health care

Theory and Practice in Medical Ethics

Graber, Glenn C.

Crossroad Pub. Co

How and where do ethical theory and practice meet? By what method and on what basis are clinical, moral decisions made? How do theories, principles, rules, values, and facts fit together to produce a moral decision? This thorny territory is explored by Graber and Thomasma, both of whom have considerable experience in medical ethics. The authors tease out and articulate six models of moral reasoning apparently extant in the literature. The models vary from the purely deductive to the purely inductive. Each is illustrated by citations of papers whose authors (wittingly or not) use one or another of these methods. - Annals of Internal Medicine

Continuum International Publishing Group

This manual is a compendium of various health care policies, guidelines, protocols, and programs that concern clinical issues with ethical implications. The collection of policies, guidelines, and procedures are helpful in drafting and reviewing institutional procedures and helping policymakers develop useful mechanisms for assuring ethical treatment of patients and staff.

Medical Ethics: Policies, Protocols, Guidelines & Programs

Monagle, John F.

ASPEN PUB.

Book by Monagle, John F., Thomasma, David C.

Health Care Ethics: Critical Issues

Religion & Spirituality

Christian health care professionals in our secular and pluralistic society often face uncertainty about the place religious faith holds in today's medical practice. Through an examination of a virtue-based ethics, this book proposes a theological view of medical ethics that helps the Christian physician reconcile faith, reason, and professional duty. Edmund D. Pellegrino and David C. Thomasma trace the history of virtue in moral thought, and they examine current debate about a virtue ethic's place in contemporary bioethics. Their proposal balances theological ethics, based on the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, with contemporary medical ethics, based on the principles of beneficence, justice, and autonomy. The result is a theory of clinical ethics that centers on the virtue of charity and is manifest in practical moral decisions. Using Christian bioethical principles, the authors address today's divisive issues in medicine. For health care providers and all those involved in the fields of ethics and religion, this volume shows how faith and reason can combine to create the best possible healing relationship between health care professional and patient.

The Christian Virtues in Medical Practice (Not In A Series)

Pellegrino D, Edmund D.

Georgetown University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Thomasma, David C.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Thomasma, David C.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Thomasma, David C.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice: Toward a Philosophy and Ethic of the Healing Professions

A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice: Toward a Philosophy and Ethic of the Healing Professions

For the Patient's Good: The Restoration of Beneficence in Health Care

Virtues in Medical Practice

Autonomy and Clinical Medicine - Renewing the Health Professional Relation with the Patient (INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF ETHICS, LAW, AND THE NEW)

Theory and Practice in Medical Ethics

Theory and Practice in Medical Ethics

Medical Ethics: Policies, Protocols, Guidelines & Programs

Health Care Ethics: Critical Issues

The Christian Virtues in Medical Practice (Not In A Series)