Ebook: Neurosurgical Ethics in Practice: Value-based Medicine

Good neurosurgical practice is based not only on evidence, skills, and modern equipment, but also on good values. This book is the first to discuss specifically the ethical issues that arise during the daily practice of neurosurgery. It is divided into three parts addressing patients’ rights, ethical issues relating to the working environment, and wider societal aspects such as dealings of neurosurgeons with the legal system, the media, and companies. The authors are well-established neurosurgeons who present the ethical problems that they have encountered during their careers and explain what they have learned in confronting these problems. In all, more than 50 neurosurgical cases drawn from real life are reported and discussed from an ethical point of view. This book will be especially informative for young neurosurgeons and will provide all who work in this very special field with a road map on how to avoid violations of medical ethics in neurosurgical practice.

Good neurosurgical practice is based not only on evidence, skills, and modern equipment, but also on good values. Young surgeons often learn about ethical behavior by observing the behavior of their teachers in different situations, but for several reasons, this is not enough. This book discusses the ethical issues that arise during the daily practice of neurosurgery. It will be especially informative for neurosurgeons, other surgeons, physicians, residents, medical students, and allied health care providers. The book is not a philosophical expose but an easily readable and highly practical road map on how to navigate ethically challenging situations in neurosurgical and other practice.

The book is divided into five parts addressing general issues, patients’ rights, end of life issues, neurosurgeons’ duties, and neurosurgeons and society. The contributing authors are well-established neurosurgeons and other doctors with long experience and from different backgrounds. They discuss ethical problems encountered in everyday practice, introduced by cases, and in all, there are more than 50 neurosurgical cases drawn from real life. The editors introduce in the title and throughout the book the term “value-based medicine” which reinforces that while modern medicine and surgery have come very far in technical aspects, the core of what we do must be based on the values embodied in bioethics.