Ethics and Law for the Health Professions is a cross-disciplinary medico-legal book whose previous editions have been widely used in the medical world. This new 3rd edition is fully revised with all ethics and law topics updated to reflect recent developments. New chapters include dealing specifically with children, health care and the environment, infectious diseases, public health, and ethics and chronic disease. All law sections have been extensively re-visited by Dr Cameron Stewart.

Its special features are its focus on a clinically relevant approach, and its recognition that health care professionals are often confronted by legal issues and ethical issues at the same time. Health professionals have to satisfy both, and their legal advisers need to be aware of the dilemmas this can present.This book is careful to distinguish between ethics and law. Its chapters take account of all the health professions, and their differing responsibilities, and cover a very wide range of the issues they face.

Summary Table of Contents

Preface,
Introduction,
What is Ethics?,
Ethical Theories and Concepts,
Relativism and Pluralism,
Introduction to Law,
Introduction to Principle-Based Ethics,
Clinical Ethics and Ethical Decision-Making,
Professionalism and Standards of Care,
Standards of Care, Errors and Negligence,
The Student in the Health-Care Environment,
Nursing,
Truth-Telling (Veracity),
Confidentiality and Record-Keeping,
Impairments of Decision-Making Capacity,
Consent,
Treatment and Non-Treatment Issues: The Limits of Medical Care,
CPR and No-CPR Orders,
Genetics,
Sexuality and Reproduction,
Abortion,
Children,
People with Mental Illness,
Ethics and Chronic Disease,
The Elderly,
Post-Coma
Unresponsiveness and Brain Death,
Organ Donation and Transplantation,
Euthanasia,
Public Health,
Infectious Diseases,
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health,
Resource Allocation and International Health,
Biomedical Research,
Health Care and the Environment,
Complementary and Alternative Medicine,
The Pharmaceutical Industry,
Index