The fourth edition of this bestselling title is designed to help you think critically and thoughtfully about ethical decisions you'll face in practice-in any health care discipline. Utilizing a unique 6-step decision making process designed by the author, this multi-disciplinary text provides an expert framework for making effective choices that lead to a professional and caring response to patients and clients.

The purpose of this paper is to encourage reflection about the harm that could result if the positive aspects of team-organized health care are compromised during the health care reform process. While other models of health care delivery could replace teamwork and serve patients as well or better, the interdisciplinary health care team probably will not be abandoned. However, one or more disciplines whose members play important roles on various teams may be sacrificed in the hasty effort to define essential (...) health care. Moreover, a significant proportion of the types of IHCTs in existence could be rashly eliminated from health plans. These changes should not take place randomly or by default. (shrink)

Pain management has no meaning without the stories of men and women, and boys and girls whose lives are dramatically altered by the presence of pain in their own and their loved ones lives. In this narrative section, four people present their perspectives on the enigma and challenge of pain, its power, and our on-going efforts to limit its hold on our lives.In the first story, Dr. Robert McQuillan, an anesthesiologist with Creighton University School of Medicine, conveys the fear some (...) patients suffering chronic pain face when seeking pain medication over the long term. Dr. Christine Cassel, chair of the Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development at Mount Sinai Medical Center and immediate past president of the American College of Physicians, recounts the plight of a fellow physician whose pain treatment of a patient led to suspension of his professional license and to personal bitterness after many years of exemplary medical practice. (shrink)