Firing some Books your way
Books for critical book review assignments or just outside reading in bioethics
not sure bing AI knows how a catapult works
(or that thing is made of balsa wood)
If you looked at the silly bus from my last post, you will have seen reference to a “critical book review.” I really believe in students reading widely in Bioethics outside of the textbook. Here is the reading list from which students must choose one book. I’ve included an edited description from Amazon and in italics along with the link to Amazon, I’ve included by comments.
Groopman,Jerome. How Doctors Think.
In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. Groopman explores why doctors err and shows when and how they can—with our help—avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health.
This is one of the most popular books for this assignment. Groopman helps us all “speak doctor” better and along the way he helps doctors “speak patient” a bit better too. This book is great even if one never works in healthcare.
Edmund Pellegrino and David Thomasma, For the Patient’s Good: The Restoration of Beneficence in Health Care
Pellegrino and Thomasma examine the principle of beneficence and its role in the practice of medicine. Their analysis, which is grounded in a thorough-going philosophy of medicine, addresses a wide array of practical and ethical concerns that are a part of health care decision-making today.
This is an older book. Pellegrino and Thomasma write a critique of the patient autonomy movement, arguing that we can honor autonomy without simply surrendering the professionalism of medicine to a mere contractual arrangement between patient and provider. This is a dense work of philosophical argument. I do recommend this to nursing students who think patient autonomy is sacrosanct and inviolable.
Danielle Ofri MD. What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear.
Can refocusing conversations between doctors and their patients lead to better health?
Though the gulf between what patients say and what doctors hear is often wide, Dr. Danielle Ofri proves that it doesn’t have to be. Through the powerfully resonant human stories that Dr. Ofri’s writing is renowned for, she explores the high-stakes world of doctor-patient communication that we all must navigate. Reporting on the latest research studies and interviewing scholars, doctors, and patients, Dr. Ofri reveals how better communication can lead to better health for all of us.
Every semester I slip one book in that I myself have never read but that looks promising. I learned from economists that you always let smart people do your research. This book is one that looks good but I haven’t read yet. I’m hoping some students take this up.
Gawande, Atul. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.
Gwande is a fantastic writer and storyteller and I read everything he writes. This one is about end-of-life. It is personal because it involves Gwande’s own family. There is a documentary associated with this book as well.
Zaner, Richard M. Conversations on the Edge: Narratives of Ethics and Illness.
Zaner reveals an authentic empathy that never borders on the sentimental. Among others, he discusses Tom, a dialysis patient who finally reveals that his inability to work -- encouraged by his overprotective mother -- is the source of his hostility to treatment . . .
This is a meh description for an important book. Zaner practically invented the clinical ethics consultant position. In the book, he tells the story of how he fell into the position from his philosophy background. It is historical. It is narrative. It is a foundational account.
Oshinsky, David M. Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital.
David Oshinsky chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.
This is a popular book for history minded folk. Bellevue is a story of healthcare equity, mental health discrimination, and helps students see roots of the modern bioethics movement as a corrective to serious immorality.
Jones, James H. Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: New and Expanded Edition.
From 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service conducted a non-therapeutic experiment involving over 400 black male sharecroppers infected with syphilis. The Tuskegee Study had nothing to do with treatment. Its purpose was to trace the spontaneous evolution of the disease in order to learn how syphilis affected black subjects. “Bad Blood” provides compelling answers to the question of how such a tragedy could have been allowed to occur.
There was nothing good about Tuskegee and every research trial that originates in the US will be compared to Tuskegee. This book is the definitive history.
Cohen, Jon. Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine.
When scientists proved in 1984 that HIV causes AIDS, a vaccine race spun into action. But the sprint to develop an AIDS vaccine now more closely resembles a crawl. Jon Cohen elucidates the forces that have hindered the search: unforeseen scientific obstacles, clashing personalities, the uncertain marketplace, haphazard political organization, and serious ethical dilemmas.
Another dated book. HIV policy has cooled as so-called maintenance drugs like Biktarvy have gained wide acceptance. Still, this book is a great one for those students interested in HIV policy or research ethics. I should probably remove this one soon and replace it with a more up to date book on HIV policy. Still I like it.
Flanigan, Jessica. Pharmaceutical Freedom: Why Patients have the Right to Self-Medicate.
In Pharmaceutical Freedom Jessica Flanigan defends patients' rights of self-medication. Flanigan argues that public officials should certify drugs instead of enforcing prohibitive pharmaceutical policies that disrespect people's rights to make intimate medical decisions and prevent patients from accessing potentially beneficial new therapies.
The same reasons for rejecting medical paternalism in the doctor's office are also reasons to reject medical paternalism at the pharmacy, yet coercive medical paternalism persists in the form of premarket approval policies and prescription requirements for pharmaceuticals.
You gotta have that one book that challenges and upsets expectations. This is that book. Flanigan’s libertarian proposal and arguments are important. I’ve had students tell me this book made them so mad they wanted to throw this one against the wall. That’s a good thing. That’s the reason it’s called “critical reading.” I encourage my politically minded students to take on this book and wrestle with Flanigan’s ideas.
Guttman, Amy and Jonathan D. Moreno. Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven but Nobody Wants to Die: Bioethics and the Transformation of Health Care in America.
. . . explores the troubling contradictions between expanding medical research and neglecting human rights, from testing anthrax vaccines on children to using brain science for marketing campaigns. Providing “a clear and compassionate presentation” (Library Journal) of such complex topics as radical changes in doctor-patient relations, legal controversies over in vitro babies, experiments on humans, unaffordable new drugs, and limited access to hospice care, this urgent and incisive history is “required reading for anyone with a heartbeat” (Andrea Mitchell).
Well that just sort of says it all doesn’t it? Almost. The author’s left leaning bias shows occasionally, so you know, recommend it to your right-leaning students for the same reasons noted above.
Sellman, Derek. What Makes a Good Nurse: Why the Virtues are Important for Nurses.
Derek Sellman sets out the case for re-establishing the primacy of the virtues that underpin the practice of nursing in order to address the question: what makes a good nurse? He provides those in the caring professions with both a rationale and a practical understanding of the importance that particular character traits, including justice, courage, honesty, trustworthiness and open-mindedness, play in the practice of nursing, and explains why and how nurses should strive to cultivate these virtues . . .
I wanted to include a book that focuses on virtue ethics. Since I teach mostly nursing students, this is one geared toward future nurses. If your program has more pre-med, there is a book called The Virtuous Physician by James A. Marcum but it’s a upper-level academic read—not for freshman.
Doudna, Jennifer and Samuel H. Sternberg. A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution.
. . . When biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR—a revolutionary new technology that she helped create—to make heritable changes in human embryos. The cheapest, simplest, most effective way of manipulating DNA ever known, CRISPR may well give us the cure to HIV, genetic diseases, and some cancers. Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences, to say nothing of the ethical and societal repercussions of intentionally mutating embryos to create “better” humans. Writing with fellow researcher Sam Sternberg, Doudna—who has since won the Nobel Prize for her CRISPR research—shares the thrilling story of her discovery and describes the enormous responsibility that comes with the power to rewrite the code of life.
Another research ethics book. It’s not dense and is written for a general audience. It’s significant that one of the people who created CRISPR has called for a moratorium on gene editing. I recommend this one for my biology majors.
I’d love to add to my list so if you have some suggestions, please drop them in the comments.