Clinical Ethics : A Practical Approach to Ethical Decisions in Clinical Medicine

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

A Doody's Core Title for 2023, 2024 & 2026!

Ethical issues are embedded in every clinical encounter between patients and clinicians. In order to practice excellent clinical care, clinicians must understand ethical issues such as informed consent, decisional capacity, surrogate decision making, truth telling, confidentiality, privacy, the distinction between research and clinical care, and end-of-life care. This popular, clinically-oriented guide provides crystal-clear case-based coverage of the ethical situations encountered in everyday medical practice.

Clinical Ethics introduces the proven Four Box Method―a much-needed pattern for collecting, sorting, and ordering the facts of a clinical ethical problem. This easy-to-apply system is based on simple questions about medical indications, patient preferences, quality of life, and contextual features that explain clinical ethics and help clinicians formulate a sound diagnosis and treatment strategy. In each chapter, the authors discuss case examples and provide analysis, comments, and specific recommendations.

The book is divided into the four topics that constitute the essential ethical structure of every clinical encounter:

• Medical Indications
• Preferences of Patients
• Quality of Life
• Contextual Features

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Albert R. Jonsen, PhD, a founder in the field of clinical ethics, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, and co-founder of the Bioethics Program at Sutter Health, developed the four-topic method to case analysis, providing a real-world approach to ethical dilemmas in clinical medicine.  

Mark Siegler, MD, MACP, is professor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Chicago, and founding director of Chicago’s MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics is a renowned expert on clinical medical ethics.

William Winslade, PhD, JD, philosopher, attorney and psychoanalyst, is professor of Philosophy in Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch, and a nationally recognized bioethicist.