Bioethics in Context: Moral, Legal and Social Perspectives

Too often, discussions of ethical issues in health care and medicine are detached from the legal contexts which guide the practice of health care providers. In this book, Gary Jones and Joseph DeMarco aim to connect ethical theory, medicine, and the law, guiding readers toward a practical and legally-grounded understanding of the issues. While health care law is not always in the right, an understanding of laws and legal precedents, and of the reasoning behind them, can help us to participate in discussion of policy and to address current legal rights as well as complex ethical questions as they arise during health care provision. This book is uniquely up-to-date in its discussion of health care law, and unpacks the complex web of American policies, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, so as to make it intelligible to those without legal expertise. Bioethics in Context covers a wide range of topics, including: appropriate measures one should take to obtain informed consent and to protect patient privacy, dealing with patients who exhibit signs of mental illness, responding to sensitive cultural and religious concerns, and balancing the needs of medical researchers with those of patients participating in clinical trials. Useful case studies and examples are embedded throughout, and a companion website offers a thorough curated database of relevant legal precedents as well as additional case studies and other resources.