Bookby Shabih H. Zaidi.
Summary: Medical ethics and the medical profession are inseparable, yet the formal teaching of medical ethics is a relatively new phenomenon. Furthermore, since the introduction of managed health care, with the physician becoming a 'health provider' and the patient a 'client', the whole concept of medical ethics has undergone a sea change. The contractual relationship between the provider and the client engenders caution and precaution, resulting in defensive medicine. This book both presents a succinct history of medical ethics and discusses a wide range of important ethical dilemmas in the provision of modern health care. A synopsis is provided of ethics through the ages and the role of ethics in the evolution of medicine. Principles and sources of medical ethics, as well as different religious and secular perspectives, are explained. Ethical concerns in relation to a variety of specific issues are then examined. These issues include, for example, human experimentation, stem cell research, assisted reproductive technologies, termination of pregnancy, rationing of health care, euthanasia, and quality of life issues. The author's many years of practicing medicine in different cultures and countries and his passion for religious works, philosophy, literature, poetry, history, and anthropology have informed and enriched the contents of this stimulating book.
Contents:
Part 1. Ethics through the ages: 1 . Early period
2. Greek period
Sophists and Socrates et al
3. Arab period
4. Bacon
Bertrand Russell
5. Voltaire
Dawkins- McIntyre
Part 2. Metaphysics, religious- secular perspectives: 6. Analysis of secular and religious thought
Part 3. Cultural anthropology and medical ethics: 7. Normative principles, autonomy, beneficence, non maleficence and justice
8. Universalism or Relativism
9. Medical ethics in a pluralistic society
Part 4. Nomenclature and description: 10. Principles and sources of medical ethics
11. Justice: a pillar of ethics. Distributive justice and international clinical trials
Part 5. The role of ethics in evolution of medicine: 12.Research ethics
13. Human experimentation
14. The scourge of drug trials
15. Human embryonic stem cell research
16. Stem cell in cultivation of sensory organs, curing deafness
17. Cybrid. Is science going mad?
18. Teaching medical ethics
Part 6. Reproductive health, ART, IVF, Abortion, Pregenetic diagnosis (PGD): 19. Assisted Reproductive Technologies
20. IVF, Pre genetic diagnosis, termination of pregnancy
21. Surrogacy
Part 7. Managed health care: 22. Rationing. Services within limited resources
23. Futility of treatment. Euthanasia
24. Therapeutic nihilism
Part 8. Quality of life issues: 25. Care of the elderly, and QALYS
26. Hospices and palliative care
27. Controversial pathways , passive euthanasia. Assisted life termination
28. Assisted life prolongation and end of life issues
Part 9. Physicians' oaths: 29. Lessons drawn from Duae Makaram Al Akhlaq
30. Hippocratic oath and contemporary faith based oaths.