Fair Resource Allocation and Rationing at the Bedside

Priority setting and rationing contribute significantly to affordable and fair healthcare and clinicians play an indispensable role in these processes. This book offers practical strategies for clinicians to allocate resources fairly, to teach about it to students, and to discuss rationing more explicitly in the public arena and the doctor's office.

Marion Danis is Head of the Section on Ethics and Health Policy in the Department of Bioethics in the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health and Chief of the Bioethics Consultation Service at the Clinical Center. Her research focuses predominantly on improving the health of disadvantaged populations and on strategies for public engagement in priority setting. She is also serves as a general internist in a primary care clinic Montgomery County, Maryland.

Samia A. Hurst is professor of Bioethics and ethics consultant at Geneva University's medical school in Switzerland, chief editor of the Swiss bioethics journal Bioethica Forum, and a member of Switzerland's National Ethics Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics. Her research focuses on fairness in clinical practice, and the protection of vulnerable persons.

Leonard Fleck, Ph.D. is a Professor of Philosophy and Medical Ethics in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University. His areas of research include social and political philosophy, theories of health care justice, health care rationing, democratic deliberation, ethical and policy issues related to genetics.

Reidun Førde is an MD and a previous Chair of the Council for Medical Ethics , Norwegian Medical Association. She was member of the second governmental commission on health priority making in Norway, and is also a member of the recently appointed third priority commission. She was also member of the first National Health Priority Council. Her research is on clinical ethics, end of life issues and resource allocation issues.

Anne Slowther is Associate Professor of Clinical Ethics at Warwick Medical School, UK, an ethics consultant at the University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, and a family physician. She is chair of the UK Clinical Ethics Network and a member of the Governing Body of the Institute of Medical Ethics. Her research interests are in ethical decision making in clinical practice and evaluation of clinical ethics support.