"We are all but an ambulance ride away from medical mischance," notes Nancy Dubler, a Harvard-trained lawyer and medical ethicist at New York's Montefiore Medical Center. In Ethics on Call: A Medical Ethicist Shows How to Take Charge of Life-and-Health Choices she reveals why a working knowledge of bioethics is one of the survival skills needed for the 1990s.
The ethical dimensions of care in a hospital have grown increasingly complicated, thanks to the ground rules defined by technology, laws, and cost containment strategies. In these dispatches from the epicenter of medical ethics, Dubler helps identify the issues and situations we might face as we seek "to take maximum control in the intricate, intimidating and alien environment that is modern medicine." The last chapter includes advice on living wills, designated health-care deciders, a life planning checklist, and a personal values inventory. Ethics on Call is a must-have empowerment resource for families.