The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics

by Vardit Ravitsky (Editor), Autumn Fiester (Editor), Arthur L. Caplan (Editor)

Overview

Named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2009 by Choice!

"[A] set of almost 70 essays, all well informed and many with attitude."

Harold Shapiro, PhD
Professor Emeritus and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs
Princeton University, Former Chair, National Bioethics Advisory Board

"This most noteworthy and authoritative collection of 67 essays...represents 'the Penn way of doing bioethics' ....The Penn Center is widely known for multidisciplinary scholarship that emphasizes empirical inquiry on bioethical issues coupled with practical application(s)....The book provides excellent coverage of...both classical topics (e.g., informed consent, infertility, eugenics) and emerging issues (e.g., cloning, nonprofessional caregiving, privacy of thought in the age of brain imaging). The contributors, including the three editors, are either well-established or emerging scholars. Each essay offers historical background, an overview of relevant issues, a conclusion, and a list of references....Summing Up: Highly recommended."--Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries

"This well-written book addresses a wide-ranging assortment of traditional bioethics issues that persist in the field as well as contemporary bioethics concerns that have evolved with new technologies and medical advances. This is a great resource for scholars in bioethics as well as various other relevant disciplines concerned with bioethical issues." Score: 96, 4 stars--Doody's Medical Reviews

The Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania is the internationally recognized leader in bioethical education and research. Its interdisciplinary faculty is drawn from the fields of medicine, law, nursing, education, philosophy, psychology, and religious studies. Arthur L. Caplan, the Center's founding director, is recognized as one of the most influential experts in bioethics. He has authored numerous books and articles, and served as the Chair of the Advisory Committee to the United Nations on human cloning.

The Penn Center's leading fellows, Autumn Fiester and Vardit Ravitsky, have combined their expertise with Dr. Caplan and over 80 other contributors to create The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics--the foremost authority on both traditional and cutting-edge bioethical issues. The Penn Guide navigates uncharted ethical terrains, undoubtedly shaping both academic and public discourses on the challenging controversies generated by new technologies, theories, and medical advances.

This volume represents the Penn Center's distinct, pioneering approach to bioethics, one that emphasizes empirical treatment of bioethical issues, and the integration of bioethical scholarship with practical application.

Learn what the Penn Center has to say about:

• Neuroethics and brain imaging: Is my mind mine?
• Choosing future people: reproductive technologies and identity
• Eugenics and survival of the fittest in the modern world
• Bioethics and national security
• Vaccination, abortion, nanotechnology, organ transplantation, end-of-life issues, and more

The Penn Guide will be the definitive text for policy makers, health practitioners, researchers, and students. This book will also inform the general public, patients, and family members as they seek answers to the bioethical issues of the day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826117311
Publisher:	Springer Publishing Company
Publication date:	04/16/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	856
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Arthur L. Caplan is the Emmanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics, Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and the Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Prior to coming to Penn in 1994, Caplan taught at the University of Minnesota, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University. He was the Associate Director of the Hastings Center from 1984-1987. He is the author or editor of twenty-five books and over 500 papers in refereed journals of medicine, science, philosophy, bioethics and health policy.

Caplan is the recipient of many awards and honors including the McGovern Medal of the American Medical Writers Association, Person of the Year-2001 from USA Today, one of the fifty most influential people in American health care by Modern Health Care magazine and one of the ten most influential people in America in biotechnology by the National Journal. He holds six honorary degrees from colleges and medical schools. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, the NY Academy of Medicine, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He writes a regular column on bioethics for MSNBC.com and is a frequent guest and commentator on National Public Radio, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and many other media outlets.

Read an Excerpt

chapter

Table of Contents

"Bioethics: Birth, Evolution and Context
1. The Birth and Evolution of Bioethics (Arthur Caplan)
2. The Ethics of Bioethics (Robert Baker)
3. The Independence Principle in Bioethics (David Perlman)
4. Health Law and Bioethics (Barry R. Furrow)
5. Bioethics: The Citizen View and Its Perils (John Timpane)
6. Health and Disease: Conceptual Perspectives and Ethical Implications (Dominic Sisti)

Emerging Issues: Neuroethics and Nanoethics
7. Neuroethics (Martha J. Farah)
8. Is My Mind Mine? Neuroethics and Brain Imaging (Paul Wolpe)
9. Future Minds: Transhumanism, Cognitive Enhancement and the Nature of Persons (Susan Schneider)
10. Ethical Issues in Nano-Medicine (Jan Jaeger, Marisa Marcin&Paul Wolpe)

Bioethics at the Bedside
11. Confidentiality: An Expectation in Health Care (Anita L. Allen)
12. Hospital Ethics Committees and Ethics Consultants (James J. McCartney)
13. Ethical Issues in Nursing Practice (Connie Ulrich&Mindy Zeitzer)
14. Conscientious Refusals by Physicians (Holly Lynch)
15. Mediation and Healthcare (Edward Bergman&Autumn Fiester)
16. The Moral Education of Medical Students (Judah L. Goldberg)
17. Disability Perspectives on Bioethics (Carol Schilling)
18. Ethical Issues in Care Giving (Gerald Wolpe)

Research Ethics
19. Research Misconduct and Fraud (Barbara K. Redman)
20. Ethical Issues in Innovative Surgery (Angelique M. Reitsma)
21. Unique Aspects of Informed Consent in Emergency Research (Jill M. Barren)
22. The Ethics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Clinical Trials: Race, Gender and Age (Diana Zuckerman)
23. The Use of Placebo-Controlled Groups in Clinical Trials (Susan Ellenberg)
24. Forbidden Knowledge (William R. LaFleur)
25. Conflict of Interest in American Universities (Perry B. Molinoff)

Reproductive Technologies
26. Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology: Avoiding Extremes (Jennifer L. Rosato)
27. Choosing Future People: Reproductive Technologies and Identity (Mark Greene)
28. Ethical Aspects of Egg Donation (Luigi Mastroianni)
29. Ethical Aspects of Male Infertility (Georgios Karnakis&Pasquale Patrizio)
30. Ethical Aspects of Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (Frances Batzer&Vardit Ravitsky)
31. The Influence of Language on the Beginning of Life Debate (Tom A. Marino)

Genetics
32. Eugenics (Mark B. Adams)
33. Human Gene Patenting (Jon F. Merz)
34. Genetics Research and Race: Whither Bioethics? (Pamela Sankar)
35. Biobanks (Bernice S. Elger)
36. Prenatal Choices: Genetic Counseling for Genetic Conditions (Curtis Coughlin)
37. Ethical Issues in Animal Biotechnology (Autumn Fiester)
38. Ethical and Social Aspects of Transgenic Plants (David Magnus)
39. Genetically Modified Food (Shane H. Morris)

Fetuses and Children
40. The Contested Territory of Medical Decision-Making for Children (Wynne Morrison&Chris Feudtner)
41. ""This Won't Hurt a Bit"": Truth Telling to Children (Alisa A. Padon&Steven Handler)
42. Children in Research: Linking Assent and Parental Permission (Victoria A. Miller, William W. Reynolds&Robert M. Nelson)
43. Withdrawing and Withholding Life Prolonging Therapies in Children (Margaret M. Mahon)
44. Ethical Challenges in Pediatric Dialysis and Kidney Transplantation (Bernard S. Kaplan, Cynthia Green, Jorge Baluarte&Kevin E. C. Meyers)
45. The Ethics of Perinatal Palliative Care (Chris Feudtner&Dave Munson)

Access to Health Care
46. Health Care Access in the U.S.: American Exceptionalism Once More! (Stephen Lammers)
47. Does the U.S. Constitution Protect a Right to Unapproved Drugs? (Theodore W. Ruger&Mahnu Davar)
48. Fair Pricing and Access to Medicines for the Poor (Don W. Light)

Community and Public Health
49. Public Health Ethics: An Update on an Emerging Field (Michael Yudell)
50. Bioethics 'on the Ground': Public Health Matters (Joanne Godley)
51. Disease Control Policy: Individual Rights Versus the Common Good (Jason Schwartz)
52. Bioethics and National Security (Jonathan D. Moreno and Michael S. Peroski)
53. Bringing the Public to the Private: Increasing the Accountability of Nonprofit Health Organizations (Roberta M. Snow)
54. The Bioethics of Tobacco (Eric A. Feldman)
55. HIV Exceptionalism and the Mutability of Ethical Boundaries (Marlene Eisenberg, Michael Blank&Ronald Bayer)

Vaccines
56. The Ethics of Allocating Vaccines (Robert I. Field)
57. The Ethics of Vaccination (James Colgrove)
58. Influenza Vaccination of Healthcare Workers (Michael Smith)

Organ Transplantation
59. Organ Transplantation: The Challenge of Scarcity (Arthur Caplan)
60. The Importance of Embodiment in Transplant Ethics (Nora L. Jones)
61. Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism (Debra Budiani-Saberi)
62. Ethical Dilemmas in the Management of the Potential Organ Donor after Circulatory Determination of Death (Scott D. Halpern)
63. Protecting Live Kidney and Liver Donors (Peter Reese, Peter Abt&Roy Bloom)
64. Organ Transplantation and Re-transplantation: Medical and Ethical Considerations (Raluca Vrabie, Vardit Ravitsky&Thoman W. Faust)

End of Life
65. Advance Directives (Stephen Hanson&David Doukas)
66. Medical Futility (Horace M. DeLisser)
67. Hospice: Past, Future, and Ethical Considerations (Amy Corcoran&Jennifer Kapo)
68. Palliative Care (Debra Lynn-McHale Wiegand)
"

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This is not the usual and increasingly redundant collection of essays. Rather it is a set of almost 70 essays all well informed and many with attitude. Moreover the authors have succeeded in largely avoiding unnecessarily technical language without sacrificing the carefulness and clarity necessary in dealing with complex issues. In short The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics is a lively collection of well informed and interesting essays on an unusually wide spectrum of topics in Bioethics. Both academics and practitioners can benefit from the large set of issues addressed. I would hope to see it on the shelves of all those with an ongoing interest in Bioethics."

—Harold T. Shapiro, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Princeton Former Chair President Council on Bioethics
Princeton University
Woodrow Wilson School

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Holly A Bante, MPH, MS (Saint Louis University)
Description: This book addresses traditional bioethics issues such as withdrawal of life support and human research subject protections as well as emerging issues in areas of neuroethics, biotechnology, and genetic screening. This comprehensive collection of topics is written by a variety of bioethics experts from the University of Pennsylvania and scholars previously affiliated with the Penn Center.
Purpose: The purpose is to provide a broad overview of bioethical quandaries that are continuously evolving and presenting daily challenges. Through empirical and normative ethical approaches, the book addresses numerous bioethics issues and controversies.
Audience: This is intended to be read and used as a tool to confront key bioethical issues not only by bioethics scholars but also by individuals engaging in public policy and industry. The book bridges bioethics scholarship with practical application. It includes perspectives that impact education, policy, and consultation. Arthur Caplan, the Center's founding director and a coauthor of the book, is a leading expert in bioethics and has authored numerous books and articles on a wide variety of bioethical issues.
Features: The book is organized into 12 overarching topics such as vaccines, organ transplantation, and access to healthcare, with numerous chapters in each. Each chapter provides a historical synopsis of the topic and then discusses how it has evolved, where it stands today, and where it's heading. Although the chapters are brief and provide merely a brief overview of the subject matter, key aspects are addressed and various perspectives are provided.
Assessment: This well-written book addresses a wide-ranging assortment of traditional bioethics issues that persist in the field as well as contemporary bioethics concerns that have evolved with new technologies and medical advances. This is a great resource for scholars in bioethics as well as various other relevant disciplines concerned with bioethical issues.

Doody's Review Service