The go-to textbook on the increasingly important and rapidly evolving topic of medical ethics

Clinical Ethics is the most popular clinically oriented guide to the complex field of medical ethics. It provides crystal-clear case-based coverage of ethical situations encountered in everyday medical practice. 

This unparalleled guide is famous for its four-topics method of approaching ethical problems (medical indications, patient preferences, quality of life, and contextual features)—an organizational process that helps you better understand the complexities involved in clinical ethics cases and find a resolution for each case. In each chapter, the authors discuss case examples and provide analysis, comments, and specific recommendations.

Sections and chapters include:

TOPIC 1: Medical Indications

• Indicated and Nonindicated Interventions
• Clinical Judgment and Clinical Uncertainty
• Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Orders not to Resuscitate
• Medical Error
• Determination of Death

TOPIC 2: Preferences of Patients

• Informed Consent
• Decisional Capacity
• Decision Making for the Mentally Incapacitated Patient
• Surrogate Decision Makers
• Failure to Cooperate in the Therapeutic Relationship

TOPIC 3: Quality of Life

• Divergent Evaluations of Quality of Life
• Enhancement Medicine
• Compromised Quality of Life and Life-Sustaining Interventions
• Pain Relief for Terminally Ill Patients
• Medically Assisted Dying
• Suicide

TOPIC 4: Contextual Features

• Health Professions
• Other Interested Parties
• Confidentiality of Medical Information
• Economics of Clinical Care
• Allocation of Scarce Health Resources
• Influence of Religion on Clinical Decisions
• Role of Law in Clinical Ethics
• Clinical Research and Education
• Public Health
• Organizational Ethics