Ethics and Law for the Health Professions

This new edition also has the most sophisticated model for ethical problem solving in clinical medicine that I have seen - a neat attempt to distil the best from existing models in use in the United States clinical ethics industry. The authors, Ian Kerridge and Cameron Stewart of the University of Sydney's Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, and Northern Territory community geriatrician Michael Lowe, are more than qualified for the job. Stewart's legal radar is spot on, with laser-sharp analysis, and Kerridge and Lowe give full rein to their imagination, drawing in material from a dizzying array of sources. Most of all, this book is that greatest rarity - a standard text that is a page turner, a cracking read that quotes from the Blwgavad Gita, and contains a Henry Lawson poem, in full. Read full review... - W Peter Saul, Medical Journal of Australia, Vol 199, No 7, 2013 Reviews of previous editions: ...this is a comprehensive, well-written text, structured in a way that will be appealing and accessible to health professionals and legal practitioners at all levels of experience and knowledge... The book will work equally well as a research tool or as a source of guidance for real problems in clinical settings...highly recommended for health professionals and the lawyers who advise them. - Law Institute Journal of Victoria, September 2009 The third edition of this scholarly textbook continues the good narrative that has attracted Australian health professionals and provides them with a thorough knowledge of the basic concepts, foundations and principles in medical ethics and law from an Australian perspective. The three highly respected authors paint a comprehensive picture of the Australian Healthcare system in 34 "hallmark" chapters over 895 pages. This third edition lives up to the reputation built by the earlier editions as a must-have key textbook for health professionals involved in health ethics and law in Australia. - The Quarterly, Vol 42 No 3, September 2009, The Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (RACMA) Although the title of the book suggests that it is for health professionals the preface and the introduction also recommend it of equal value to lawyers. As a general reference resource for lawyers I would have to agree. The three authors are Australian with significant qualifications in the areas of law and medicine. ... Overall this is an excellent comprehensive treatment of many issues that confront health professionals in their daily practice. - ACT Law Society Newsletter, Ethos, March 2010 This is a highly accessible text which offers a comprehensive account of ethics for the health professsions. ... [It] makes an excellent reference text for students ... - Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, Vol 2 No 3 The three authors are extensively qualified in medical ethics and and the interrelationship between medicine and the law ... This excellent work travereses a huge territory from ethical theories through legal principles, standards of care, capacity, consent, confidentiality, non-treatment orders, mental illness ... and many other medical areas where ethics and law are intertwined. The structure is a general discussion of examples with tables of distilled procedural advice aimed at clarifying issues, to lead to ethical decision-making. The tables serve their purpose well in focussing attention on relevant principles to reach conclusions with the confidence to take responsibility for the decision. There are examples of relevant legal cases with passages from judgments as well as ethical analyses. In looking at problems several approaches are identiified and described. For example, in a case study about people with a mental illness, the psychiatric diagnosis, the psycho-social model, the biopsychosocial model and the medical model are decribed in detail. This way readers can understand the complexity of some cases and the differing, yet quite acceptable, approaches taken by diff

Part 1: Introduction to Ethics and Law: What is Ethics?; Ethical Theories and Concepts; Relativism and Pluralism; Introduction to Law. Part 2: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving in Ethics and Law: Critical Thinking in Biomedical Ethics and Law; Evidence, Health, Ethics and Law; Principle-based Ethics; Problem Solving in Clinical Ethics and Law. Part 3: Core Topics in Ethics and Health Law: Professionalism; Trust, Standards of Care, Error and Negligence; The Student in the Health-Care Environment; Nursing; Truth-Telling (Veracity); Confidentiality and Record-Keeping; Consent; Impairments of Decision-Making Capacity; Treatment and Non-Treatment Issues: The Limits of Medical Care; CPR and No-CPR Orders; Sexuality; Reproduction; Abortion; Children; People with Mental Illness; The Elderly; End-of-Life Care: Palliative Care, Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide; The Donation and Transplantation of Organs and Tissues; Post-Coma Unresponsiveness and Brain Death; Biomedical Research; Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM); Drugs and Drug Companies. Part 4: Health Ethics, Law and Society: Public Health; Infectious Diseases; Ethics and Chronic Disease; Culture; Rural Health and Ethics; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health; Global Health; Resource Allocation; Health Care, Animals and the Environment. Part 5: The Challenge of Emerging Technologies: Genetics and Genomic Medicine; Biotechnology and the Emergent Biosciences.