This short textbook of ethics and law is aimed at doctors in training and in practice. Medical ethics and law are now firmly embedded in the curricula of medical schools. The ability to make clinical decisions on the basis of critical reasoning is a skill that is rightly presumed as necessary in today's doctors. Medical decisions involve not only scientific understanding but also ethical values and legal analysis. The belief that it is ethically right to act in one way rather than another should be based on good reasons: it is not enough to follow what doctors have always done, nor what experienced doctors now do.
The third edition has been revised and updated to reflect changes in the core curriculum for students, developments in the law as well as advances in medicine and technology. It includes a new ‘extensions’ section, providing an outline of important developing areas in medical ethics.
Part 1: Foundations 1. Reasoning about ethics 2. Ethical theories and perspectives 3. Three core concepts in medical ethics - best interests, autonomy and rights 4. An introduction to law 5. Doctors and patients: relationships and responsibilities
Part 2: Core topics 6. Consent 7. Capacity 8. Mental Health 9. Confidentiality 10. Resource allocation 11. Children and young people 12. Disability and disease 13. Reproductive medicine 14. End of Life 15. Organ transplantation and definitions of death 16. Medical Research and audit
Part 3: Extensions 17. Neuroethics 18. Genethics 19. Information ethics 20. Public health ethics
Dominic Wilkinson, MBBS BMedSci MBioeth DPhil FRACP FRCPCH, Professor of Medical Ethics, Director of Medical Ethics, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics; Consultant Neonatologist, John Radcliffe Hospital; Senior Research Fellow, Jesus College, Oxford, UK, Jonathan Herring, Professor of Law and Vice Dean, Faculty of Law, Oxford University, UK and Julian Savulescu, BMedSci, MBBS, MA, PhD, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics and Director, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; Visiting Professorial Fellow in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting International Professorship in Law, University of Melbourne, Australia
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