Our Hands Are Tied: Legal Tensions and Medical Ethics

(Hardback)

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Description

As a critical examination of the pervasive tension existing between defensive medicine and good, ethical patient care, this book investigates the impact of legalities on medical treatment. Physicians today are apprehensive about the threat of malpractice suits. Kapp explores the extent to which this fear is justified. He examines where physicians get their ideas about what the law forbids and requires, how physicians' perceptions of the law and medicine affect medical care, and whether these behavioral manifestations benefit or hurt a physician's ability to practice ethically. Kapp then suggests ways medical professionals can resolve tension caused by conflicting demands and encourage more ethical care.

Reviews

"Marshall Kapp's [book] is an important and eloquent description of how our legal system has distorted judgements and values in the medical profession. Our Hands Are Tied is a unique contribution to a vitally important problem."-Philip K. Howard Author, The Death of Common Sense
Kapp nicely demonstrates the tie between professional risk and clinical practices that give shift to patients' rights and preferences.-Health Affairs
Kapp stays away from the abstract discussion of principles and the ponderous discussion of legal codes, couching his argument in reason and appealing to common sense. For busy professionals, it is a short and very accessible 175 pages and this reviewer recommends it highly as required reading for advanced practice and bedside nurses alike.-Nursing Ethics
"Kapp nicely demonstrates the tie between professional risk and clinical practices that give shift to patients' rights and preferences."-Health Affairs
"Kapp stays away from the abstract discussion of principles and the ponderous discussion of legal codes, couching his argument in reason and appealing to common sense. For busy professionals, it is a short and very accessible 175 pages and this reviewer recommends it highly as required reading for advanced practice and bedside nurses alike."-Nursing Ethics

Author Bio

MARSHALL B. KAPP is Professor in the Departments of Community Health and Psychiatry and Director of the Office of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at Wright State University School of Medicine. He is a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Dayton School of Law and is editor of the Journal of Ethics, Law, and Aging. He is the author of numerous books, including Geriatrics and the Law (Second edition, 1992) and Preventing Malpractice in Long Term Care (1987).