Book Description
Taking her title from the physicians' Hippocratic Oath, Belkin, who covers medical issues for the New York Times, spent nearly three years with the Hermann Hospital Ethics Committee in Houston, Texas, researching this provocative book on medical ethics. The daily, convulsive questions of life and death that the committee struggles with are often questions without answers, yet they are somehow answered at the Hermann Hospital and in hospitals across the country every single day. Belkin quotes a Chinese proverb: if you save a life, you are responsible for it. The cruel, deceptively simple wisdom of this proverb is brought home on nearly every page of this entirely true, gripping, and dramatic account of how medical chance and technology trap the unsuspecting in a vise of brutal decision-making. Totally engrossing and highly recommended. For a theological perspective on medical ethics, see the review of Theological Voices in Medical Ethics on p. 122.
Comments
From Customer:
I just finished the last page and immediately had to share my review. I'm a pre-med student and have taken an ethics course and read several books on medical ethics, most of traditional textbook style. This one tops the list. The true stories bring medical ethics to life. They force you to think of the patients and thier families instead of laws and policies. I believe that is the best part about this book. Medical ethics can be portrayed as clear-cut law or it can be portrayed as the more realistic heart-wrenching decisions doctors and patients must make. This book did an astounding job at portraying the latter. I cried within the first chapter and several times thereafter. Lisa Belkin put an obvious effort into her research to write this compelling book. For anyone who is interested in medical ethics or enjoys a compassionate read, First, Do No Harm will be hard to put down.
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