Primary Care Ethics

Healthcare ethics is a subject of increasing interest, especially when it related to some of the challenging themes regularly discussed in the media. Suitable for the entire primary care team, this work provides a diverse range of perspectives on topical issues. It distinguishes the moral and legal aspects, and adopts the theme-based approach.

Offering a theme-based approach to ethical discussion and analysis, Bowman (medical ethics and law, St. George''s, University of London) and Spicer (GP education, London Deanery, University of London) present essays on ethical issues experienced at the interface between patients'' lives, hopes, and values, and the responses of healthcare professionals working in structures that are not necessarily of their own choosing. Contributors bring perspectives from primary care practice, bioethics, medical education, and clinical ethics to bear on relationships between professionals and patients, professional values, and intra-professional ethics. Autonomy and paternalism, the care of elderly demented patients, and ethico-legal perspectives on clinical competence are some areas discussed. The book is distributed in the US by BookMasters. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)