This is the first book to take nursing ethics beyond stock 'moral concepts' to a critical examination of the fundamental assumptions underlying the very nature of nursing. It takes as its point of departure the difficulties nurses experience practising within the confines of a bioethical model of health and illness and a hierarchical, technocratic health care system. The contributors go on to deal openly and honestly with controversial issues faced by nurses, such as euthanasia and HIV.
Biography
Geoffrey Hunt is the first philosopher to have been employed by the National Health Service. In 1992, his controversial National Centre for Nursing Ethics at the Hammersmith Hospital was closed down, reopening in 1993 at the University of East London. He has published widely in social philosophy and the ethics of health care.
'Will help nurses and their trainers explore many of the issues affecting the working practice of those who enter the profession ... will be of interest to all the caring professions and would open the eyes of those who criticise and condemn people working within the National Health Service.' - Health & Healing
'Anyone interested in the nursing approach to health care will find it most illuminating.' - Ethics & Medicine