Caring Well Religion, Narrative, and Health Care Ethics

Caring Well provides a fresh approach to problems in medical ethics. It shows how attending closely to the concerns and religious commitments of both patients and professionals enables ethicists to offer wiser critiques of moral issues in the field of health care. Beginning with chapters that work to recover an experience-near method of engaging moral problems from classic twentieth century writing on religion and medicine, the contributors next consider how the practice of care-giving is shaped by the particular commitments of professionals, the communities they serve, and patients themselves. Then, through on-the-ground accounts of issues attending the donation and transplantation of organs, contributors consider how ethicists might help patients, their families, and professionals work through conflicts between commitments. The final chapters offer perspectives on the ways experience-near appraisals of care for the dying can help all parties concerned -- health care professionals, patients, their families, and ethicists -- to affirm the dignity of the dying and to connect the experience of mortality with what it means to be human. Book jacket.Smith, David H. is the author of 'Caring Well Religion, Narrative, and Health Care Ethics' with ISBN 9780664222567 and ISBN 0664222560.