Medical Harm: Historical, Conceptual and Ethical Dimensions of Iatrogenic Illness - Softcover

Sharpe, Virginia Ashby; Faden, Alan I.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521634903 ISBN 13: 9780521634908

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1998

Synopsis

It is estimated that up to thirteen percent of hospital admissions result from the adverse effects of diagnosis or treatment, and that anywhere from 44,000 to 98,000 hospital deaths annually are the result of errors. The obligation to "do no harm" has been central to medical conduct since ancient times, yet iatrogenic illness and medical error have now come to be recognized as significant risk factors in health care delivery. This book integrates history, philosophy, medical ethics and empirical data to examine the concept and phenomenon of medical harm. Issues covered include medical error, appropriateness of care, acceptable risk and practitioner accountability, and recommendations for limiting iatrogenic harm.

About this title

Book Description

It is estimated that up to thirteen percent of hospital admissions result from the adverse effects of diagnosis or treatment, and that almost seventy percent of iatrogenic complications are preventable.This book integrates history, philosophy, medical ethics and empirical data to examine the concept and phenomenon of medical harm. Issues covered include appropriateness of care, acceptable risk and practitioner accountability. Essential reading for medical ethicists, physicians and those involved in health care policy and administration.

Review

"Sharpe and Faden...have provided a useful exploration of the historical and ethical basis of medical harm laying the groundwork for addressing this problem." The Lancet

"As medicine gains new knowledge, its power for both harm and good expands exponentially. It becomes daily more urgent, therefore, for all of us to comprehend the ethical and scientific dimensions of medical harm. This book cogently and provocatively examines a neglected sector of modern medical practice." Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., Center for Clinical Bioethics, Georgetown University Medical Center

"In addition to providing a comprehensive distillation of the philosophical and ethical bases of medical practice as they relate to patient harm, several of the concepts advanced in this book are especially noteworthy." Journal of the American Medical Association

"Sharpe and Faden have written a thought-provoking and original book. Highly readable and impressive in scope, the work should engage a broad range of people interested in the health-care system, including but not limited to medical and nursing educators, health services researchers, bioethicists, and health-care policy analysts." Medical Humanities Review

"...provides an important history of the concept of iatrogenic illness, explores ethical tensions in the doctor-patient relationship, which make the recognition of error difficult, and provides valuable tools to resolve these tensions." Chicago Medicine

"...this book is an important one for medical professionals...nicely written and makes for easy reading. Throughout, the authors use well-documented, specific cases to illustrate particular points." New England Journal of Medicine

"This is a very important, groundbreaking overview of an issue about which there exists much intellectual and emotional confusion and misunderstanding in our culture with its excessive optimism about the beneficence of science and its medical applications." Doody's Health Sciences Book Review Journal

"Virginia Sharpe and Alan Faden have written a book that will be of great use to those trying to understand and minimize medical harm...I would encourage the medical ethics and education communities to consider Sharpe and Faden's framework for thinking about medical harm carefully as they develop and revise guidelines for professional practice." Feminist Approaches to Bioethics

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0521634903
• ISBN 13: 9780521634908
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296