An examination of the most important medical issues of our time.
Can trust between doctors and patients survive in an age of intensive scientific research, managed health care and the Internet?
In these essays Richard Horton examines how our conceptions of disease and its treatment have changed over the centuries, and considers urgent contemporary issues:
- The impact of modern warfare on health services
- The debate over euthanasia
- Controversies over HIV and Aids
- The Human Genome project
- The debate over the gay gene
- Harold Shipman and the Hippocratic Oath
In an age when medical knowledge has never been greater and as patients develop from passive recipients of health care into active consumers, ethical and practical decisions - the ability to "play God" - has left doctors and health care providers with some of the heaviest responsibilities in modern society. Richard Horton's informed and timely contribution to these debates will be essential reading for practitioners and users in the health service alike.
