The Philosophy and Practice of Medicine and Bioethics

Rationale of the book.- About the Authors.- 1. Metaphor in Medicine. The Metaphorical Method .- 2. Definition.- 3. Decision Making: fallacies and other mistakes.- 4. Analysis of Causation in Medicine.- 5. Ethics and Non-Ethics.- 6. Medicotheology and Biotheology.- 7. Emotion in Medicine.- 8. Enlightened Versus Normative Management. Ethics Versus Morals..- 9. Care: A Critique of the Ethics and Emotion of Care.- 10. Egoism and Altruism in Medicine.- 11. Letting Die.- 12. A Critique of Autonomy and Patient Responsibility.- 13. Philosophy and Ethics of the Body.- 14. Organ Donation: Mandatory Organ Donation Declaration.- 15. Stem Cell Research: A Question of Beliefs?.- 16. Philosophy of Prevention.- 17. Ethics Counseling: Philosophy of Medicine Counseling Instead of Medical Ethics Counseling.- 18. Medical Language: The Ordinary Language Approach.- 19. A Critique of Evidence-Based Medicine. Evidence Based Medicine and Philosophy Based Medicine .- 20. Lying in Medicine.- 21. Rhetoric of Death and Dying.- Index.

Warren Shibles was a Senior philosophy professor at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, Wisconsin and also taught courses at Tübingen, Germany. He has published 27 books, and over 180 professional journal articles.He also was a researcher in phonetics. He died in July 2007. Barbara Maier is a Senior physician, gynaecologist and obstetrician at the Women`s Hospital in Salzburg and head of the Department of Gynaecological Endocrinology and Assisted Reproduction at the University Clinic of Gynaecology and Obstetrics in Salzburg, Austria. She has been teaching ethics in medicine at the Institute for Ethics and Law at the University of Vienna since 1993. She has a Ph.D. in Philosophy, and M.D from the University of Vienna.

From the reviews:

"The Philosophy and Practice of Medicine and Bioethics, it provides an overview of the crucial issues being faced in medical practice, replete with interesting case studies and patient-care narratives ... . The authors repeatedly encourage good, open communication between patients and healthcare workers as well as between healthcare professionals and management staff. They also advocate constructive dialogue and human relationships based on trust, which are surely relevant aspects of what a philosophy of medicine must promote." (Francesca Marin, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, Vol. 34, 2013)

"This book advocates a philosophy of medicine founded on humanism and naturalism. ... a philosophical work providing an honest, detailed, analytical inquiry of prevailing concepts and methods used in medicine. ... The book, a mixture of philosophical argument, opinions, case studies, and patient-care narratives from the authors' experience, is best appreciated ... . I found this book to be an informative read ... . most understood and best appreciated by academics in moral philosophy and ethics ... . the book is surely worth the effort." (Andrew R. Barnosky, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 306 (8), August, 2011)

"The purpose is to present a 'naturalistic, practical, pragmatic, consequentialistic, and humanistic theory of ethics,' to apply this to the philosophy of medicine, and to examine existing bioethical arguments in light of this theory. A systematic approach to this topic is quite welcome. ... the book will be helpful to practitioners, and ... healthcare workers (and everyone else) would benefit greatly from paying greater attention to philosophical ethics. ... Readers sympathetic to naturalistic and humanistic philosophies are the most likely to find this work helpful." (D. Robert MacDougall, Doody's Review Service, February, 2011)