Critical Choices and Critical Care : Catholic Perspectives on Allocating Resources in Intensive Care Medicine

__Critical Choices and Critical Care__ brings together the traditional reflections on ordinary and extraordinary means with Catholic social thought. It examines the difficult questions on the allocation of high technology resources used in intensive care medicine. The book also provides relevant background information (e.g. statements by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). It is accessible to theologians, philosophers, and health care professionals. Front Matter....Pages i-vii The Moral Paradox of Critical Care Medicine....Pages 1-4 Front Matter....Pages 5-5 Ethical Issues Raised by Intensive Care....Pages 7-22 Ethical Issues in Intensive Care: Criteria for Treatment within the Creation of a Health Insurance Morality....Pages 23-56 Commentary on: Brody & Rie....Pages 57-61 Intensive Care its Nature and Problems....Pages 63-78 Ethical Issues in Critical Care: Criteria for Treatment....Pages 79-101 Front Matter....Pages 103-103 Conserving Life and Conserving Means: Lead Us Not into Temptation....Pages 105-118 The Old and the New in the Doctrine of the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Means....Pages 119-125 Admission to and Removal from Intensive Care: a Personalist Approach....Pages 127-143 The Notion of Criterion in Critical Care Ethics....Pages 145-161 Distributive Justice in the Era of the Benefit Package: The Dispute Over the Oregon Basic Health Services Act....Pages 163-185 Back Matter....Pages 187-220 "Critical Choices and Critical Care brings together the traditional reflections on ordinary and extraordinary means with Catholic social thought. It examines the difficult questions on the allocation of high technology resources used in intensive care medicine. This book also provides relevant background information (e.g. statements by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). It is accessible to theologians, philosophers, and health care professionals."--BOOK JACKET