Introduction

This is a book written across the grain of contemporary ethics, where the principle of autonomy has triumphed.It is an attempt to see the law of medicine, the principles of bioethics, and the encounter between doctor and patient from the patient's point of view. While Schneider agrees that many patients now want to make their own medical decisions, and virtually all want to be treated with dignity and solicitude, he argues that most do not want to assume the full burden of decision-making that some bioethicists and lawyers have thrust upon them. What patients want, according to Schneider, is more ambiguous, complicated, and ambivalent than being "empowered." In this book he tries to chart that ambiguity, to take the autonomy paradigm past current pieties into the uncertain realities of modern medicine.

About the Author

Carl E. Schneider is an American lawyer and bioethicist. He serves as Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law and as Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. He was educated at Harvard College and received his JD from the University of Michigan. Schneider subsequently clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; he served in the same capacity for Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court.

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Autonomy-Patients-Doctors-Decisions/dp/0195113977/ (Amazon)