The American Medical Ethics Revolution: How the AMA's Code of Ethics Has Transformed Physicians' Relationships to Patients, Professionals, and Society

Book info: The American Medical Ethics Revolution: How the AMA's Code of Ethics Has Transformed Physicians' Relationships to Patients, Professionals, and Society (Hardcover, 440 pages) – Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Language: English.

To reflect on medical ethics past as means of illuminating our understanding of medical ethics present and future.

Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title

The American Medical Association enacted its Code of Ethics in 1847, the first such national codification. In this volume, a distinguished group of experts from the fields of medicine, bioethics, and history of medicine reflect on the development of medical ethics in the United States, using historical analyses as a springboard for discussions of the problems of the present, including what the editors call "a sense of moral crisis precipitated by the shift from a system of fee-for-service medicine to a system of fee-for-system medicine, better known as 'managed care.'"

The authors begin with a look at how the medical profession began to consider ethical issues in the 1800s and subsequent developments in the 1900s. They then address the sociological, historical, ethical, and legal aspects of the practice of medicine. Later chapters discuss current and future challenges to medical ethics and professional values. Appendixes display various versions of the AMA's Code of Ethics as it has evolved over time.

Contributors: George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H., Arthur Isak Applbaum, Ph.D., Robert B. Baker, Ph.D., Chester R. Burns, M.D., Ph.D., Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., Alexander Morgan Capron, J.D., Christine K. Cassel, M.D., Linda L. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., Eliot L. Freidson, Ph.D., Albert R. Jonsen, Ph.D., Stephen R. Latham, J.D., Ph.D., Susan E. Lederer, Ph.D., Florencia Luna, Ph.D., Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., Charles E. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Mark Siegler, M.D., Rosemary A. Stevens, Ph.D., Robert M. Tenery, Jr., M.D., Robert M. Veatch, Ph.D., John Harley Warner, Ph.D., Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D.

Book Description

To reflect on medical ethics past as means of illuminating our understanding of medical ethics present and future.

From the Author

Summary of book & list of contributing authors

"The transition from the personal ethics of oaths to the professiona l ethics of codes...marks a radical transition from personally interpreted "gentlemanly" ethics to collaboratively interpreted professional ethics--a transition so radical that it is properly described as a revolution." -- from the Introduction

This book collects historical, philosophical and critical essays originally presented on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the AMA's Code of Medical Ethics--the first national code of professional ethics in any profession--at a conference in Philadelphia that was sponsored by the Center for Bioethics of the University of Pennyslvania, the Institute for Ethics of the American Medical Association, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

In the first section of the book, a group of distinguished medical historians comment on the history of professional ethics, ethics codification, and a century-and-a-half of challenges to the AMA's Code from inside and outside the profession. In a second section, essays by experts from a number of different bioethics-related fields (medicine, law, philosophy, sociology) question the legitimacy of "professional self-regulation," and whether it is physicians themselves or others who ought to control the scope and nature of medical ethics. Finally, a series of essays addresses contemporary bioethics issues: bioethics and human rights, medical ethics standards in the developing world, the ethical treatment of alternative medicine, the challenge of "population medicine," and the question of universal access to healthcare.

Medical historians and bioethicists will also value the appendix, which contains the full 1847 AMA Code of Medical Ethics and some valuable supporting materials, as well as the 1903, 1912, 1957, 1980 and current versions of the Code, and some sample contemporary opinions and reports of the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs.

Contributors to the volume include: George Annas--Boston University; Arthur Applbaum--Harvard University; Robert Baker--Union College & Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania; Chester Burns--University of Texas; Arthur Caplan--Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania; Alexander Morgan Capron--University of Southern California; Christine Cassel--Mt. Sinai Medical Center; Linda Emanuel--Ethics Standards Division, AMA; Eliot Freidson--New York University; Albert Jonsen--University of Washington; Stephen Latham--Northwestern University Law School; Susan Lederer--Yale University; Florencia Luna--University of Buenos Aires; Edmund Pellegrino--Georgetown University Medical Center; Charles Rosenberg--University of Pennsylvania; Mark Seigler--University of Chicago; Rosemary Stevens--University of Pennsylvania; Robert Tenery--Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, AMA; Robert Veatch--Georgetown University; John Harley Warner--Yale University; Paul Root Wolpe--Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania

About the Author Robert B. Baker, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Union College.

Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., is a professor and director, Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania College of Medicine.

Linda L. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., is Vice President for Ethics Standards at the American Medical Association.

Stephen R. Latham J.D., Ph.D., teaches at Northwestern University School of Law.