This fourth edition of Health Care Ethics provides a contemporary study of broad and major issues affecting health care and the ethics of health care from the perspective of Catholic teachings and theological investigation.

It aims to help Christian, and especially Catholic, health care professionals solve concrete problems in terms of principles rooted in Scripture and tested by individual experience.

Since the last edition of Health Care Ethics, there have been many changes in the fields of health care medicine and theology that have necessitated a fourth edition. Ashley and O'Rourke have revised their seminal work to address the publication of significant documents by the Church and the restructuring of the health care system.

Features of the revised fourth edition:

• Discusses significant Church documents issued since the third edition includes "The Splendor of Truth" (Veritatis Splendor), and the "Gospel of Life" (Evangelium Vitae); the "Instruction on the Vocation of Theologians"; the Catechism of the Catholic Church; and the Revised Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services.

• Examines the implications of managed care techniques.

• Probes such changes in the practice of medicine as the new emphasis on preventive care, the involvement of individuals in their own care, greater use of pharmaceuticals in psychiatry, and the greater role of genetics in diagnosis and prognosis.

• Explores the quest for more compassionate care of the dying.

• Updates the bibliography.

Benedict M. Ashley, OP, a priest of the Dominican Order, Chicago Province, is Emeritus Professor of Moral Theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. He is a senior fellow of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. He has been honored with the medal Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice conferred by John Paul II and the Thomas Linacre Award from the National Federation of Catholic Physicians' Guilds. He is coautor of Ethics of Health Care: An Introductory Textbook, Third Edition (with Kevin O'Rourke, OP).

Kevin O'Rourke, OP, is professor emeritus and founder of the Center for Health Care Ethics at the Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center. He is a professor of bioethics at the Neiswanger Institute of Bioethics and Public Policy, Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University, Chicago. He is author of Medical Ethics: Sources of Catholic Teachings, Third Edition and coauthor of A Primer for Health Care Ethics: Essays for a Pluralistic Society, Second Edition.