This book illuminates issues in medical ethics revolving around the complex bond between healer and patient, focusing on friendship and other important values in the healing relationship. Embracing medicine, philosophy, theology, and bioethics, it considers whether bioethical issues in medicine, nursing, and dentistry can be examined from the perspective of the healing relationship rather than external moral principles.

Distinguished contributors explore the role of the health professional, the moral basis of health care, greater emphasis on the humanities in medical education, and some of the current challenges facing healers today.

David C. Thomasma is the Fr. Michael I. English, SJ, Professor of Medical Ethics and Director of the Medical Humanities Program at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago. Among his more than twenty books is Helping and Healing, with Edmund D. Pellegrino (Georgetown, 1997).

Judith Lee Kissell is an assistant professor at Georgia College and State University.

PrefaceDavid C. Thomasma and Judith Lee Kissell

A Profesion of Trust: Reflections on a Fundamental VirtueLeo J. O'Donovan, SJ

Part I The Nature of the Health Care Professional

The Physician-Patient RelationshipG. Kevin Donovan

Friendship as an Ideal for the Patient-Physician Relationship: Critique and an AlternativeF. Daniel Davis

The Dentist as Healer and FriendJos V.M. Welie

Learning through Experience and Expression: Skillful Ethical Comportment in Nursing PracticePatricia Benner

Engendering Trust in a Pluralistic SocietyMarian Gray Secundy and Rodger L. Jackson

Part II The Moral Basis of Health Care

Internal and External Sources of Morality for MedicineRobert M. Veatch

Doctoring and the (Neglected) Virtue of Self-ForgivenessJeffrey Blustein

Moral Courage: Unsung Resource for Health Professional as Healer and FriendRuth B. Purtillo

The Six Transformations of American Health CareJoan Collins Henry

The Principle fo DominionDavid C. Thomasma

Organizational Ethics and the Medical Professional: Reappraising Roles and ResponsibilitiesGeorge Khushf

Part III Current Challenges

Reproductive Technologies: Where Are We Headed?Richard A. McCormick, SJ

The Search for the Meaning of the Human BodyJudith Lee Kissell

Healing and Dying: Spiritual Issues in the Care of the Dying PatientDaniel P. Sulmasy, OFM

Prophet to the Profession: Healing and Physician-Assisted SuicideCourtney S. Campbell

The Role of Reason, Emotion and Aesthetics in Making Ehtical JudgmentsErich H. Loewy

The Contribution of Philosophical Hermeneutics to Clinical EthicsLazare Benaroyo

Money, Medicine, and MoralsWilliam S. Andereck

Theology and BioethicsRichard A. McCormick, SJ

Part IV Medical Education

Teaching the Humanities in American Medical Schools during the Twentieth Century: A Commentary on the Two Dominant ModelsChester R. Burns

Reflections on the Humanities and Medical Education: Balancing History, Theory, and PracticeThomas K. McElhinney

Religious Elements in HealingGlenn C. Graber and Bradford R. Smith

Index