Abstract

Structured around eight chapters, this book introduces ethical theory and practice to healthcare students and professionals, including medicine, nursing, public health, dentistry, and research.

Increasingly, students and professionals within healthcare are faced with difficult questions and decisions: medical progress and technological innovation are widening the therapeutic scope, thereby both allowing for new, exciting possibilities but also making clinical decisions more intricate. That’s why it is no longer enough to provide healthcare students and professionals with some basics in biomedical ethics; rather, what is needed is also an accessible guide to ethical theories and practices, which does not presuppose any background or training in philosophy while at the same time not renouncing the fundamental questions at the core of the medical profession – this book aims to be exactly that ethical guide.
Meta-ethics is too often overlooked in healthcare ethics, yet it grounds all subsequent, practical reflections. Di Nucci’s book helps to fill this important gap, before delving into specific questions. Its engaging and conversational style makes it a welcome introduction for students to the intricacies of moral thinking.
Silvia Panizza, Lecturer in Ethics, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia
Since the beginning of 2015, Ezio di Nucci has been Associate Professor of Medical Ethics at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences of the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark. His recent books include Drones and Responsibility (2016) Ethics Without Intention (2014), and Mindlessness (2013).
This is an important book for readers in philosophy who seek to understand the thinking that drives medical ethics and the importance of teaching it. It provides a way to reflect on ethical dilemmas and nurtures a spirit of philosophical enquiry in the health professional.
Olinda Timms, Adjunct Professor, Division of Health and Humanities, St Johns Research Institute, Bangalore
Ethics in Healthcare offers a brilliant, perspicuous and well-argued introduction to ethics in general and healthcare ethics in particular. It has a lot to offer to medical students with an interest in the wider philosophical background to medical ethics. Also, it offers an exemplary treatment of central issues in medical ethics, e.g. assisted suicide, consent and special responsibilities of doctors.
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Professor, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University