Here is a thoroughly updated edition of a classic in palliative medicine. Two new chapters have been added to the 1991 edition, along with a new preface summarizing where progress has been made and where it has not in the area of pain management. This book addresses the timely issue of doctor-patient relationships arguing that the patient, not the disease, should be the central focus of medicine. Included are a number of compelling patient narratives. Praise for the first edition "Well (...) written. . .should be read by everyone in medical practice or considering a career in medicine."---JAMA. "Memorable passages, important ideas, and critical analysis. This is a book that clinicians and educators should read."---New England Journal of Medicine. (shrink)

From the author of Setting Limits comes a challenging exploration of the proper goals of medicine in our rapidly changing society--a work destined to spark debate and influence policy for years to come.

There is more to modern health than new scientific discoveries, the development of new technologies, or emerging or re‐emerging diseases. World events and experiences, such as the AIDS epidemic and the humanitarian emergencies in Bosnia and Rwanda, have made this evident by creating new relationships among medicine, public health, ethics, and human rights. Each domain has seeped into the other, making allies of public health and human rights, pressing the need for an ethics of public health, and revealing the rights‐related (...) responsibilities of physicians and other health care workers. (shrink)

After describing Heidegger's critique of metaphysics as ontotheology, I unpack the metaphysical assumptions of several transhumanist philosophers. I claim that they deploy an ontology of power and that they also deploy a kind of theology, as Heidegger meant it. I also describe the way in which this metaphysics begets its own politics and ethics. In order to transcend the human condition, they must transgress the human.

Standard medical ethical analyses typically focus on the physician/patient relationship, patient autonomy, and the clinical encounter. For Liberation Theology this amounts to neglecting the larger context of social injustice. Medicine is a social institution. Any medical ethics which purports to provide an ethics of medicine and medical practice must necessarily address the larger social issues of class structure, poverty and access to adequate health care. Liberation Theology provides a very specific perspective that draws on the needs of the poverty stricken, (...) assesses the relationship among social classes, and focuses on societal conditions. Given such an analysis, medical ethics is reconfigured as concerned not only with clinical encounters but also with background cultural conditions and social justice. (shrink)

Standard medical ethical analyses typically focus on the physician/patient relationship, patient autonomy, and the clinical encounter. For Liberation Theology this amounts to neglecting the larger context of social injustice. Medicine is a social institution. Any medical ethics which purports to provide an ethics of medicine and medical practice must necessarily address the larger social issues of class structure, poverty and access to adequate health care. Liberation Theology provides a very specific perspective that draws on the needs of the poverty stricken, (...) assesses the relationship among social classes, and focuses on societal conditions. Given such an analysis, medical ethics is reconfigured as concerned not only with clinical encounters but also with background cultural conditions and social justice. (shrink)