Biomedical subjects
Stephen R Latham
Publications and source records attributed to Stephen R Latham.
Ethics in the marketing of medical services.
This paper deals with the ethics of marketing medical services by physicians, medical groups, hospitals and other mainstream medical caregivers in the United States. It does not deal with pharmaceutical marketing, since that raises a number of special issues, some of them legal and some having to do with the unique culture of pharmaceutical marketing, which really ought to be dealt with separately. Nor does it touch on the little-explored field of marketing alternative and complementary medicine. It begins with a general description of what is included in "the marketing process." It then briefly tours some of the difficulties faced by those who would market medical services ethically, and ends with some comments on the relevance of professionalism to ethical marketing.
Pharmaceutical costs. An overview and analysis of legal and policy responses by the states.
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Medical professionalism: a Parsonian view.
This paper argues for a normative conception of medical professionalism based on the work of sociologist Talcott Parsons. Such a conception grounds medical professionalism on the expert authority of the physician; the concept of authority is therefore discussed at length. Parsons view also lays much stress on the fact that the proper exercise of medical authority nearly always involves aligning the interests of individual patients with those of society at large. Parsonian professionalism looks to professional institutions such as medical schools, societies and journals to secure the competence and ethical behavior of professionals, and to help ensure that professionals exercise of authority is never biased by private financial interests or by public political power. Professional institutions should encourage professionals to develop a set of preferences and desires (e.g., for respect of their peers, and not for power or financial gain) that will tend to make them trustworthy authorities.
The (low) life of ethics codes.
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Some limits of decision-theory in bioethics: rights, ends, and thick concepts.
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