HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS REGISTER		Author Keyword(s) Vol Page [Advanced]

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this link to a friend Similar articles in this journal Add article to my folders Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Pattison, S Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Pattison, S

Bioethics and the humanities: attitudes and perceptions

RS Downie and Jane Macnaughton. Published by Abingdon and New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007, £25.99 (paperback), pp 208. 978-1-84472-052-1

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

This book partially exemplifies how medical humanities approaches, particularly those drawn from philosophy and literature, might deepen and broaden understandings of ethics and healthcare to effect "a humanistic broadening of bioethics" (p181). It attempts to substantiate the view that the humanities have considerable value in critically evaluating "the practice of medicine, its identity and meaning at a given point in time" (p167).

To this end, the authors, both philosophers (one is also a doctor), provide some intriguing glimpses into the ways in which humanities can help to make and keep healthcare practice and practitioners more critical and rounded. They argue that humanities disciplines have two basic functions in relation to bioethics and medicine. First, they can perform a critical, analytical function whereby philosophical insights and methods are applied to arguments and assumptions made in medical practice. Second, they have a supplementary educational function in enriching and developing the character and . . . [Full text of this article]