Ethics and Error in Medicine
Preview
Book Description
This book is a collection of original, interdisciplinary essays on the topic of medical error. Given the complexities of understanding, preventing, and responding to medical error in ethically responsible ways, the scope of the book is fairly broad. The contributors include top scholars and practitioners working in bioethics, communication, law, medicine and philosophy. Their contributions examine preventable causes of medical error, disproportionate impacts of errors on vulnerable populations, disclosure and apology after discovering medical errors, and ethical issues arising in specific medical contexts, such as radiation oncology, psychopathy, and palliative care. They also offer practical recommendations for respecting autonomy, distributing burdens and benefits justly, and minimizing injury to patients and other stakeholders. Ethics and Error in Medicine will be of interest to a wide range of researchers, students, and practitioners in bioethics, philosophy, communication studies, law, and medicine who are interested in the ethics of medical error.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Michael S. Pritchard
1. Introduction: Medicine, Mistakes, and Moral Evaluation
Sandra L. Borden
Part I: Questions of Justice
2. Medical Error and Moral Luck
Fritz Allhoff
3. Toward a Restorative Just Culture Approach to Medical Error
Jeremy R. Garrett and Leslie Ann McNolty
4. Rehabilitating Blame
Samuel Reis-Dennis
Part II: Communication and Risk
5. A Communication-Based Approach to Safeguarding against Medical Errors: The Case of Palliative Care
Leah Omilion-Hodges
6. Communicating about Technical Failures in Assisted Reproductive Technology
Rashmi Kudesia and Robert Rebar
7. Respecting Patient Autonomy in Radiation Oncology and Beyond
Megan Hyun and Alexander Hyun
Part III: Vulnerable Populations
8. Medical Over-testing and Racial Distrust
Luke Golemon
9. The Epistemology of Medical Error in an Intersectional World
Devora Shapiro
10. The Harm of Ableism: Medical Error and Epistemic Injustice
Joel Michael Reynolds and David Pena-Guzman
11. Error and Determinations of Decision-Making Competence in Mentally Ill Patients
Kelsey Gipe
Part IV: Learning from Error
12. Medical Error as a Collaborative Learning Tool
Jordan Wadden
13. Inference to the Best Explanation and Avoiding Diagnostic Error
David Kyle Johnson
14. Psychopathy Treatment and the Stigma of Yesterday's Research
Rasmus Larsen
15. Reducing Medical Errors through Simulation: An Ethical Alternative for Training Medical Practitioners
T.J. Broy, Maureen Hirthler, Robin Rockhold, and Ralph Didlake
Editor(s)
Biography
Fritz Allhoff is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Western Michigan University. He has had fellowships in the Institute for Ethics of the American Medical Association and in the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford Law School. His books have been published by Oxford University Press, University of Chicago Press, and others.
Sandra L. Borden is Professor in the School of Communication and Director of the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society at Western Michigan University. Her books include the award-winning Journalism as Practice: MacIntyre, Virtue Ethics and the Press (Ashgate 2007; Routledge 2009).
Reviews
"This collection of essays offers an engaging treatment of the applied ethical concerns arising in connection with medical error, tackling questions of autonomy, consent, disclosure, and apology. Summing Up: Highly recommended." – Choice Reviews