From prescriptions to pain killers to transplantation of human organs, the perplexities of medical ethics extend far beyond the confines of medicine. This book offers over 100 engrossing case studies that guide the reader to an understanding of the ethical aspects of medical care. The cases illustrate dilemmas arising in everyday practice—what to tell a dying patient, selecting a surgical approach, choosing between brand-name and generic drugs—as well as the ethical consequences of advanced technology—prenatal diagnosis that might result in the decision to abort, or keeping an irreversibly comatose patient alive with support methods.

Robert M. Veatch first shows readers how to identify ethical issues and points out that an important element in making a decision is to identify the person responsible for it. Then, in analyzing the classical moral question "What is the right thing to do?" he cites situations that were actually faced by patients and medical professionals. He explores a number of specific ethical problems in contemporary medicine: abortion, sterilization, contraception, transplantation, hemodialysis, genetic counseling, and human experimentation, among others. The last chapter focuses on death and dying.

Ethical positions are never forced upon the reader. Instead, the author is careful to present alternatives and to discuss the consequences of a particular decision. His book is written for patients, their families and friends, nurses, technicians, counselors, social workers, physicians, employers, and lawyers—indeed for anyone affected by the burgeoning power of medical intervention.