Good Medicine: The Art of Ethical Care in Canada

Hebert (Doing Right), a family physician and medical ethicist, recounts cases that exemplify the line doctors must sometimes walk between helping patients live longer and helping them to live better. He soberly explores the ethical issues surrounding end-of-life care. Hebert's personal experiences of Parkinson's disease and surgeries on his back and brain inform his perspective on the primacy of patients and their desires. The collection can be thought of as a shorter, less pointed version of Atul Gawande's Being Mortal, which poses similar ethical questions about the choices so many eventually face. Gawande observes elsewhere that the standardization of the Caesarian has made obsolete the art of child delivery; here, Hebert similarly observes that in focusing on statistical success, modern-day medicine has achieved stupendous advances, but has, in the process, crowded out the patient. He argues for recovering the humanity that has been allowed to fall by the wayside and restoring it to end-of-life care. Whether Hebert's calculus would yield positive results in a broad variety of cases, and not just the few he discusses, is an academic question; even if it goes unanswered, this book will be of interest to Canadians receiving medical care, their loved ones, and others interested in medical ethics. Agent: Samantha Haywood, Transatlantic Agency. (Apr.)