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Overview"The history of medicine is a record of scientific discovery, clinical triumph, and personal sacrifice; it is also a record of obscurantism, dogmatism, and greed. In this humane book one of our leading medical ethicists addresses the conflict between altruism and self-interest, which he believes is built into the structure of medical care and woven into the very fabric of physicians' lives. In the process, he reveals both the wisdom and the weaknesses of traditional ethics in an era of innovative-and controversial-health care. This new medicine, only now coming into being, is no longer patient based. Patients are, more than ever before, representatives of a class-individuals with AIDS, the elderly, the comatose, the indigent-and the approach to treatment is influenced by the population from which those patients come. In addition, Albert Jonsen points out, medicine has moved from being an institution in which the physician is the dominant actor, the patient-physician relation the dominant scenario, and diagnosis and therapy the dominant script, to an institution in which physicians, a multitude of other providers, and newly empowered patients share equal billing. Jonsen calls for a return to the methods and values of the humanities, which he calls ""the hormones that course through the complex institution of medicine and that enable it to respond to the constantly changing scientific, social, and economic environment."" Medicine must call up its memories and reflect upon its values. Ranging through history from the mythical Asclepius to the latest recipient of a transplanted heart, Jonsen reformulates the old ethics in terms that bring justice, competence, and compassion to bear on contemporary biomedical dilemmas. This is clearly a book to be read not only by members of the healing and helping professions but by every thinking person." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Albert JonsenPublisher: Harvard University Press Imprint: Harvard University Press Edition: New edition Dimensions: Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.30cm , Length: 21.00cm Weight: 0.222kg ISBN: 9780674617261ISBN 10: 0674617266 Pages: 176 Publication Date: 01 March 1992 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsReviewsAuthor InformationTab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |