Ethics, communication skills, and the law ('practice skills') are important in all aspects of modern health care. Doctors and nurses must be sensitive to the ethical aspects of their work and understand the legal framework within which clinical decisions are made. Well developed skills of communication, with patients, their relatives and other members of the clinical team, are a key feature of good clinical practice
Until recently, the important of practice skills has been relatively neglected in health care education. This situation is changing. The UK General Medical Council, for...

Moral Theory and Medical Practice aims to bring the practical needs of medicine closer to the theoretical interests of philosophy. While most work in the field of medical ethics has been concerned with the examination and solution of practical dilemmas, this book explores the potential benefits of philosophical analysis. By drawing directly on moral theory, philosophical analysis can help to resolve difficulties in the practice of medicine and psychiatry that arise from the obscurity of our concepts of illness and disease. The author provides a specifically philosophical contribution to an...

This collection examines prevalent assumptions in moral reasoning which are often accepted uncritically in medical ethics. It introduces a range of perspectives from philosophy and medicine on the nature of moral reasoning and relates these to illustrative problems, such as New Reproductive Technologies, the treatment of sick children, the assessment of quality of life, genetics, involuntary psychiatric treatment and abortion. In each case, the contributors address the nature and worth of the moral theories involved in discussions of the relevant issues, and focus on the types of reasoning...