This volume is a contribution to the continuing interaction between law and medicine. Problems arising from this interaction have been addressed, in part, by previous volumes in this series. In fact, one such problem constitutes the central focus of Volume 5, Mental Illness: Law and Public Policy [1]. The present volume joins other volumes in this series in offering an exploration and critical analysis of concepts and values underlying health care. In this volume, however, we look as well at some of the general questions occasioned by the law's relation with medicine. We do so out of a conviction that medi cine and the law must be understood as the human creations they are, reflect ing important, wide-ranging, but often unaddressed aspects of the nature of the human condition. It is only by such philosophical analysis of the nature of the conceptual foundations of the health care professions and of the legal profession that we will be able to judge whether these professions do indeed serve our best interests. Such philosophical explorations are required for the public policy decisions that will be pressed upon us through the increasing complexity of health care and of the law's response to new and changing circumstances. As a consequence, this volume attends as much to issues in public policy as in the law. The law is, after all, the creature of human deci sions concerning prudent public policy and basic human rights and goods.
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Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
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ISBN-13
978-94-009-8407-3 (9789400984073)
DOI
10.1007/978-94-009-8407-3
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Section I / The Physician's and Researcher's Mandate from Society: Biomedical, Legal, and Ethical Considerations.- Introductory Comments.- Clinical Intuition: A Procedure for Balancing the Rights of Patients and the Responsibilities of Physicians.- Physicians and Society: Tribulations of Power and Responsibility.- Clinical Investigations in Developing Countries: Legal and Regulatory Issues in the Promotion of Research and the Protection of Human Rights.- Federal Regulation of Medicine and Biomedical Research: Power, Authority and Legitimacy.- Section II / Causation and Responsibility: Science, Medicine and the Law.- Causation and Responsibility: Medicine, Science and the Law.- Relevant Causes: Their Designation in Medicine and Law.- Time, Law and Responsibility: Additional Thoughts on Causality.- Section III / The Psychiatrist's Dilemma: Duty to Patient or Duty to Society?.- Psychotherapeutic Discretion and Judicial Decision: A Case of Enigmatic Justice.- The Morality of Involuntary Hospitalization.- Duty to the Patient or Society: Reflections on the Psychiatrist's Dilemma.- Section IV / Decision Making at the Beginning of Life: Medicine, Ethics and the Law.- The Bearing of Prognosis on the Ethics of Medicine: Congenital Anomalies, the Social Context and the Law.- Substantive Criteria and Procedures in Withholding Care from Defective Newborns.- Is Existence Ever an Injury?: The Wrongful Life Cases.- Wrongful Life: A Reply to Angela Holder.- Section V / Round Table Discussion - Legal Rights and Moral Responsibilities in the Health Care Process.- Physician, Patient and Malpractice: An Historical Perspective.- The Concept of a Right Ordering.- The Function of Legal Rights in the Health Care Setting.- The Child-Patient: Do Parents have the 'Right to Decide'?.-Legal Rights and Moral Responsibilities in the Health Care Process.- Closing Remarks.- Notes on Contributors.
