Ethics and Health Care
An Introduction
Cambridge Applied Ethics Series

Who should have access to assisted reproductive technologies? Which one of many seriously ill patients should be offered the next available transplant organ? When may a surrogate decision maker decide to withdraw life-prolonging measures from an unconscious patient? Questions like these feature prominently in the field of health care ethics and in the education of health care professionals. This book provides a concise introduction to the major concepts, principles and issues in health care ethics, using case studies throughout to illustrate and analyse challenging ethical issues in contemporary health care. Topics range widely, from confidentiality and truthfulness to end-of-life care and research on human subjects. Ethics and Health Care will be a vital resource for students of applied ethics, bioethics, professional ethics, health law and medical sociology, as well as students of medicine, nursing and other health care professions.

Part I. Ethics in Health Care: Role, History, and Methods: 1. The role of ethics in health care; 2. A brief history of health care ethics and clinical ethics consultation in the United States; 3. Methods of health care ethics; 4. Law and ethics in health care; 5. Culture and ethics in health care; Part II. Moral Foundations of the Therapeutic Relationship: 6. Privacy and confidentiality; 7. Truthfulness; 8. Informed consent to treatment; 9. Surrogate decision-making; 10. Professionalism: responsibilities and privileges; 11. Resource stewardship; Part III. Controversies in Health Care Ethics: Treatment Choices at the Beginning and at the End of Life: 12. Assisted reproductive technologies; 13. Abortion; 14. Maternal-fetal conflict; 15. Advance care planning and advance directives; 16. Moral conflicts in end-of-life care; 17. Medical futility; 18. Aid in dying; Part IV. Ethics in Special Contexts: Biomedical Research, Genetics, and Organ Transplantation: 19. Research on human subjects; 20. The genetic revolution; 21. Organ transplantation; For further reading; References; Index.

John C. Moskop is Professor of Internal Medicine and Wallace and Mona Wu Chair of Biomedical Ethics at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He chairs the Clinical Ethics Committee at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and serves on the Ethics Committee of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He is the author of more than one hundred articles and book chapters on a broad range of topics in bioethics.