Surgery inevitably inflicts some harm on the body. At the very least, it damages the tissue that is cut. These harms often are clearly outweighed by the overall benefits to the patient. However, where the benefits do not outweigh the harms or where they do not clearly do so, surgical interventions become morally contested. Cutting to the Core examines a number of such surgeries, including infant male circumcision and cutting the genitals of female children, the separation of conjo...

Written by a social worker, popular educator, and member of the transgender community, this well-rounded resource combines an accessible portrait of transgenderism with a rich history of transgender life and its unique experiences of discrimination. Chapters introduce transgenderism and its psychological, physical, and social processes. They describe the coming out process and its effect on family and friends, the relationship between sexual orientation, and gender and the differences betw...

How Doctors Think defines the nature and importance of clinical judgment. Although physicians make use of science, this book argues that medicine is not itself a science but rather an interpretive practice that relies on clinical reasoning. A physician looks at the patient's history along with the presenting physical signs and symptoms and juxtaposes these with clinical experience and empirical studies to construct a tentative account of the illness. How Doctors Think is ...

How do women living with genital herpes and/or HPV (human papilloma virus) infections see themselves as sexual beings, and what choices do they make about sexual health issues? Adina Nack, a medical sociologist who specializes in sexual health and social psychology, conducted in-depth interviews with 43 women about their identities and sexuality in regards to chronic illness. The result is a fascinating book about an issue that affects over 15 million Americans, but is all too little discu...

A groundbreaking look at the connection between germs and mental illness, and how we can protect ourselves.Is it possible to catch autism or OCD the same way we catch the flu? Can a child's contact with cat litter lead to schizophrenia? In her eye-opening new book, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Harriet Washington reveals that we can in fact "catch" mental illness. In Infectious Madness, Washington presents the new germ theory, which posi...

It's Not That Simple: Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide presents the reader with the knowledge and understanding of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia and how it will greatly impact our society. 

This is an important and complete resource for:Transgender People who seek more information about themselves, their gender origins, aides to transitioning, and how to maintain better relations with and come out to family members, others meaningful people, and employers;Those Who Know a Transgender Person will learn the cause, why it is kept a secret, their biological imperative to express their inner gender, and how to maintain a loving relationship with their transgender l...

A Christian psychiatrist examines the latest research, refuting the alleged genetic basis for homosexuality and assessing the social power homosexuals have gained.

What was it like to be young and sick in the past? Who taught children how to be healthy and what were they expected to learn? In Small Matters, Mona Gleason explores how medical professionals, lay practitioners, and parents understood young patients and how children responded.During the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in the interwar decades, a number of changes took shape within the field of child healthcare - the rise of pediatrics as a medical profess...

Who should have access to assisted reproductive technologies? Which one of many seriously ill patients should be offered the next available transplant organ? When may a surrogate decision maker decide to withdraw life-prolonging measures from an unconscious patient? Questions like these feature prominently in the field of health care ethics and in the education of health care professionals. This book provides a concise introduction to the major concepts, principles and issues in health car...

A philosopher offers a framework for the treatment of intersex children, and a moral argument for responsibility to them and their families.Putting the ethical tools of philosophy to work, Ellen K. Feder seeks to clarify how we should understand "the problem" of intersex. Adults often report that medical interventions they underwent as children to "correct" atypical sex anatomies caused them physical and psychological harm. Proposing a philosophical framework for th...

Do doctors fix patients? Or do they heal them? For all of modern medicine’s many successes, discontent with the quality of patient care has combined with a host of new developments, from aging populations to the resurgence of infectious diseases, which challenge medicine’s overreliance on narrowly mechanistic and technical methods of explanation and intervention, or “fixing’ patients. The need for a better balance, for more humane “healing” rationales and practices that attend to the socia...