Cross- Cultural Perspectives in Medical Ethics, Second Edition, is an anthology of the latest and best readings on the medical ethics of as many of the major religious, philosophical, and medical traditions that are available today.

This volume is the result of a conference sponsored by the Medical Alumni Association of the University of California, Davis and held in Sacramento, California, in January, 2000, The purpose of this conference was to examine the impact ofvarious health care structures on the ability of health care professionals to practice in an ethically acceptable manner. One of the ground assumptions made is that ethical practice in medicine and its related fields is difficult in a setting that pays only lip service to ethical principles. The limits of ethical possibility are created by the system within which health care professionals must practice. When, for example, ethical practice necessitates—as it generally does—that health care professionals spend sufficient time to come to know and understand their patients’ goals and values but the system mandates that only a short time be spent with each patient, ethical practice is made virtually impossible. One of our chief frustrations in teaching health care ethics at medical colleges is that we essentially teach students to do something they are most likely to find impossible to do: that is, get to know and appreciate their patients’ goals and values. There are other ways in which systems alter ethical possibilities. In a system in which patients have a different physician outside the hospital than they will inside, ethical problems have a different shape than if the treating physician is the same person.

The contributions to this volume grew out of papers presented at an international conference Individual, Community & Society: Bioethics in the Third Millennium, held in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, between 25-28 May 1999. The conference was organized by the Centre for Comparative Public Management and Social Policy, and Ethics in Contemporary China Research Group, in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong. The conference brought together scholars from east and west to investigate the challenges to caring and to traditional moral authorities that would confront bioethics in the third millennium. They explored the implications of moral loss and moral diversity in post-traditional and post-modern societies, and how these would shape the character of medical care and bioethics discourse in the new era. A proceedings volume under the same title of Individual, Community & Society: Bioethics in the Third Millennium, was published in May 1999 for the conference meeting.

Based in part on a survey of ethical decision-marking among 682 medical geneticists worldwide, this book includes a chapter authored by a geneticistand an ethicist in 19 nations, describing genetic services, counselling, screening, prenatal diagnosis, and major ethical problems and social controversies faced by geneticists. The concluding chapter describes ethical and policy issues that exist worldwide, and offerssome possible resolutions.

This book provides an up-to-date description of cross-cultural aspects of end-of-life decision-making. The work places this discussion in the context of developments in the United States such as the emphasis on patient informed consent, “right to die” legal cases, and the federal Patient Self-Determination Act. With the globalization of health care and increased immigration from developing to developed countries, health care professionals are experiencing unique challenges in communicating with seriously ill patients and their families about treatment options as well as counselling all patients about advance medical care planning. While many Western countries emphasize individual autonomy and patient-centered decision-making, cultures with a greater collectivist orientation have, historically, often protected patients from negative health information and emphasized family-centered decision-making. In order to place these issues in context, the history of informed consent in medicine is reviewed. Additionally, cross-cultural issues in health care decision-making are analysed from the perspective of multiple philosophical theories including deontology, utilitarianism, virtues, principlism, and communitarian ethics. This book is a valuable addition to courses on end-of-life care, death and dying, cross-cultural health, medical anthropology, and medical ethics and an indispensable guide for healthcare workers dealing with patients coming from various cultural backgrounds.

This text/reader performs two tasks: First, it provides a sound, comprehensive introduction to the field of conventional Western medical ethics; second, it introduces readers to cross-cultural perspectives related to these or similar issues.

How is the concept of patient care adapting in response to rapid changes in healthcare delivery and advances in medical technology? How are questions of ethical responsibility and social diversity shaping the definitions of healthcare?In this topical study, scholars in anthropology, nursing theory, law and ethics explore questions involving the changing relationship between patient care and medical ethics. Contributors address issues that challenge the boundaries of patient care, such as: - HIV-related care and research- the impact of new reproductive technologies- preventative healthcare- technological breakthroughs that are changing personal-caring relationships.Chapters range from a consideration of the practicalities of nursing and family healthcare to a debate about ‘universal human needs' and patients' rights.This book is a provocative exploration of the ways in which healthcare models are socially constructed. It will be of interest to policy-makers, medical practitioners and administrators, as well as students of sociology, anthropology and social policy.