A woman with what is quite probably a terminal illness must choose between courses of treatment based on contradictory diagnoses. A medical student causes acute pain in his patients as he learns to insert a central line. One doctor wonders how to react when a patient asks him to pray with her; another struggles to come to terms with his mistakes. A physician writes in prominent medical journal about facilitating a dying woman's wish to end her life on her own terms; letters to the editor reflect passionate responses both in support of and in opposition to his actions. These experiences and many more are vividly rendered in "Patients, Doctors, and Illness", which brings together nineteen classic pieces that appeared in the first edition of "The Social Medicine Reader" with eighteen pieces new to this edition. This volume examines the roles and training of health care professionals and their relationships with patients, ethics in health care and end-of-life experiences and decisions. It includes fictional and non-fiction narratives and poetry; definitions and case-based discussions of moral precepts in health care, such as truth-telling, informed consent, privacy, and autonomy; and readings that provide legal, ethical, and practical perspectives on many familiar but persistent ethical and social questions raised by illness and care. Duke University Press is pleased to announce the second edition of the bestselling "Social Medicine Reader". "The Reader" provides a survey of the challenging issues facing today's health care providers, patients, and caregivers by bringing together moving narratives of illness, commentaries by physicians, debates about complex medical cases, and conceptually and empirically based writings by scholars in medicine, the social sciences, and the humanities. The first edition of "The Social Medicine Reader" was a single volume. This significantly revised and expanded second edition is divided into three volumes to facilitate use by different audiences with varying interests.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Experience of IllnessThe Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine, Eric J. Cassell Lilacs in September, Katha Pollitt Diabetes, James Dickey The Cost of Appearances, Arthur Frank Betting Your Life, Alice Stewart Trillin The Want of Control: Ideas and Ideals in the Management of Diabetes, Chris Feudtner Spence + Lila, Bobbie Ann Mason Silver Water, Amy Bloom The Mother-in-Law, Doris Betts Part II: The Culture of Medicine and the Physician-Patient RelationshipBasic Clinical Skills: The First Encounters, Melvin Konner The Learning Curve, Atul Gawande Case Study: The "Student Doctor" and a Wary Patient, Marc D. Basson, Gerald Dworkin, and Eric J. Cassell A Student's View of a Medical Teaching Exercise, Abenaa Brewster Primum non tacere: An Ethics of Speaking Up, James Dwyer Perspective Shift, Daniel Shapiro Facing Our Mistakes, David Hilfiker God at the Bedside, Jerome Groopman Part III: Health Care Ethics and the Clinician's RoleGlossary of Basic Ethical Concepts in Health Care and Research, Nancy M. P. King Ethics in Medicine: An Introduction to Moral Tools and Traditions, Larry R. Churchill, Nancy M. P. King and David Schenck Historical and Contemporary Codes of Ethics: The Hypocratic Oath, Maimonides' Prayer, the Declaration of Geneva, and the AMA Principles of Medical Ethics Case Study: Please Don't Tell!, Leonard Fleck and Marcia Angell Invasions, Perri Klass The Use of Force, William Carlos Williams The Lie, Lawrence D. Grouse Informed Consent, Cancer, and Truth in Prognosis, George J. Annas Offering Truth: One Ethical Approach to the Uninformed Cancer Patient, Benjamin Freedman What the Doctor Said, Raymond Carver Part IV: The End of LifeA Man in His Life, Yehuda Amichai End-of-Life Ethics: Some Common Definitions, Larry R. Churchill and Nancy M. P. King Informed Demand for "Non-Beneficial" Medical Treatment, Steven H. Miles The Case of Helga Wanglie: A New Kind of "Right to Die" Case, Marcia Angell Disconnecting a Ventilator at the Request of a Patient Who Knows He Will Then Die: The Doctor's Anguish, Miles J. Edwards and Susan W. Tolle The Promise, Sharon Olds Death and Dignity: A Case of Individualized Decision Making, Timothy E. Quill Correspondence: "Death and Dignity: The Case of Diane" Doctor, I Want to Die. Will You Help Me? Timothy E. Quill The Chain of Safety, Charles R. Feldstein Try to Remember Some Details, Yehuda Amichai

Prizes

A collection of readings - geared for medical students and students of public health - that deal with social and cultural issues in medicine

Reviews

Praise for the 3-volume second edition of The Social Medicine Reader: "A superb collection of essays that illuminate the role of medicine in modern society. Students and general readers are not likely to find anything better."--Arnold S. Relman, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School Praise for the first edition: "This reviewer strongly recommends The Social Medicine Reader to the attention of medical educators."--Samuel W. Bloom, JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association