Mortal Choices

By analyzing dozens of real-life dilemmas and pertinent legal cases, the author probes ethical issues raised by new medical technologies and new approaches in medicine and ponders the individual's rights, physician's responsibilities, and govenment's role in medical aid dispensation

Does a surgeon violate a patient's right of self-determination by performing a critical operation without his or her explicit consent? At what point should an incapacitated person be judged legally incompetent and involuntarily hospitalized? Macklin, who serves on the bioethical review committees of various hospitals, probes the ethical dimensions of a host of medical dilemmas in this humane and searching report. She explores the quandary of how to allocate scarce medical resourcesblood transfusions, beds in intensive-care units, slots on a dialysis unit. She also brings to light the dissension among doctors over whether the Jarvik artificial heart was too risky to implant in humans. For seriously ill patients who wish to refuse life-sustaining therapy, a sample "living will" is presented. The author, who teaches bioethics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, argues that no single moral yardstick or rule of thumb can cover the welter of life choices.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The complexity of the ethical issues surrounding health care has given rise to a new professionbioethics. Writing in a sensitive, balanced manner, Macklin provides much insight into this profession's challenging and fascinating role. She poignantly describes the anguish and soul-searching involved in deciding to discontinue medical treatment, in determining what is in the "best interest" of a person who is not competent to decide for himself or herself, even in determining that a person is, indeed, incompetent. Using actual cases, she also illustrates underlying tensions between public policy and individual rights. The result is a compelling study of the ethical dilemmas involved in making medical judgments. An important and provocative book. Carol R. Glatt, N.J. Bioethics Commission, Trenton
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.