Marketisation Ethics And Healthcare

How does the market affect and redefine healthcare? The marketisation of Western healthcare systems has now proceeded well into its fourth decade. But the nature and meaning of the phenomenon has become increasingly opaque amidst changing discourses, policies and institutional structures. Moreover, ethics has become focussed on dealing with individual, clinical decisions and neglectful of the political economy which shapes healthcare. This interdisciplinary volume approaches marketisation by exploring the debates underlying the contemporary situation and by introducing reconstructive and reparative discourses. The first part explores contrary interpretations of ‘marketisation’ on a systemic level, with a view to organisational-ethical formation and the role of healthcare ethics. The second part presents the marketisation of healthcare at the level of policy-making, discusses the ethical ramifications of specific marketisation measures and considers the possibility of reconciling market forces with a covenantal understanding of healthcare. The final part examines healthcare workers’ and ethicists’ personal moral standing in a marketised healthcare system, with a view to preserving and enriching virtue, empathy and compassion. Chapters 4 and 7 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Compassion in Healthcare gives an account of the nature and content of compassion and its role in healthcare. While compassion appears to be a straightforward aspect of life and practice, Hordern's analysis shows that it is plagued by both conceptual and practical ills, and stands in need of some quite specific kinds of therapy. Starting from a diagnosis of what precisely is wrong with 'compassion'—its debilitating political entanglements, the vagueness of its meaning, and the risk of burnout it threatens—three therapies are prescribed for these ills: an understanding of patients and healthcare workers as those who pass through the life-course, encountering each other as wayfarers and pilgrims; a grasp of the nature of compassion in healthcare; and an embedding of healthcare within the realities of civic life. Applying these therapeutic strategies uncovers how compassionate relationships acquire their content in healthcare practice. The form that compassion takes is shown to depend on how doctrines of time, tragedy, salvation, responsibility, fault, and theodicy make a difference to the quality of people's lives and relationships. Drawing on the author's real-world collaborations, the way in which compassion matters to practice and policy is worked out in the detail of healthcare professionalism, marketization, and technology. Covering everything from conception to old age, and from machine learning to religious diversity, Compassion in Healthcare draws on philosophy, theology, and everyday experience to expand our understanding of what compassion means for healthcare practice.

The goals of healthcare and health policy, and the health-related dilemmas facing policy makers, professionals, and citizens are extensively analysed and debated in a range of disciplines including public health, sociology, and applied philosophy. Health and the Good Society is the first full-length work that addresses these debates in a way that cuts across these disciplinary boundaries. Alan Cribb's core argument is that clinical ethics needs to be understood in the context of public health ethics. This entails healthcare ethics embracing 'the social dimension' of health in two overlapping senses: first, the various respects in which health experiences and outcomes are socially determined; and second, the ways in which health-related goods are better understood as social rather then purely individual goods. This broader approach to the Cthics of healthcare includes a concern with the social construction of both healthcare goods and the roles, ideals, and obligations of agents; that is to say it focuses upon the 'value field' of health-related action and not only upon the ethics of action within this value field. This groundbreaking book thus seeks to 'open up' the agenda of healthcare ethics both methodologically and substantively: it argues that population-oriented perspectives are central to all healthcare ethics, and that everybody has some share of responsibility for securing health-related goods including the good of greater health equality. One of its major conclusions is that the rather limited tradition of health education policy and practice needs a complete re-think.

Is social enterprise yet another example of the expansion of the market into all areas of life and society, in this case the marketization of poverty? Or does it offer genuine hope as part of a solution to some of the challenges facing contemporary society, and as an example of an economy of mutuality? Framing this question theologically, does it offer the potential of “faithful economic practice”? The Promise of Social Enterprise makes the case that how we answer this depends on the language we use to describe—and perform—social enterprise. Arguing for the need to move beyond the narrow and reductionistic logic of mainstream economics, the economic nature of the language of gift and mutuality is explored. Drawing on the theological framework of Pope Benedict XVI and the work of John Barclay on Paul’s understanding of the social implications of the Christ-gift, this book considers the contribution that a theology of gift, with its incongruity and mutuality, makes to the theory and practice of social enterprise.

This introduction to the philosophy of medicine surveys the landscape of western philosophy as it pertains to healthcare in an accessible way. Written by a doctor for doctors and other health professionals, framing the 'toolbox' of philosophy within the community of medicine, it encourages examination of the implicit assumptions made in the construction of medical knowledge and practice. Taking the reader step by step through the concepts that underpin modern philosophy, they will be challenged to reflect upon the premises within clinical practice which might benefit from scrutiny and challenge, including the nature of scientific knowledge, the limits of our biomedical model, the cultural and relational context, and the failure to recognise or manage adequately the fact/value distinction in medicine and healthcare. The book is an ideal textbook for students of medicine and medical philosophy and will also be of interest to bioethicists, medical sociologists, clinical commissioners and to practicing clinicians in medicine and the allied health professions seeking to improve their understanding of philosophy and ethics and sharpen their critical thinking skills.

This book provides insights into dynamic and complex interrelationships between professionalism and medical practice. It does so by looking into the most relevant and recent theoretical and practical frameworks and by systematizing and integrating extensive and growing literature on medical professionalism. Through honest and prudent contributions from very diverse backgrounds and contexts, this book provides an understanding of medical professionalism derived from a broader historical and cultural context in order to contribute to everyday professional life and practice – the very place of its existence. The book presents the conflicting and sometimes irreconcilable demands and challenges physicians face in everyday practice. A better understanding of these fundamental issues is the only way for medicine to maintain and preserve its unique morality, the same one that enabled its existence in the first place. The book is relevant for everyone immersed and interested in the subject of medical professionalism as a resource, which may ease or guide them through the complexities of issues at hand. It will also contribute to the ongoing debate on medical professionalism, medical ethics, bioethics, and professionalism and ethics in general.

The application of proper ethical systems and education programs is a vital concern in the medical industry. When healthcare professionals are held to the highest moral and training standards, patient care is improved. Healthcare Ethics and Training: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a comprehensive source of academic research material on methods and techniques for implementing ethical standards and effective education initiatives in clinical settings. Highlighting pivotal perspectives on topics such as e-health, organizational behavior, and patient rights, this multi-volume work is ideally designed for practitioners, upper-level students, professionals, researchers, and academics interested in the latest developments within the healthcare industry.