The rapid technological, social, and economic changes in medical practice require that we know our goals and responsibilities.
To confront the ongoing public debates regarding the judicial and legislative controls of medical care, bureaucratization, malpractice, increased medical costs, and other problems necessitates a concern for a philosophy and ethics of medicine. The authors of this book write, "A philosophy of medicine is needed to form an integrating principle for its splintering specialities, to offer a rational, scientific explanation of its methods; and to discover the relationship between Eastern and Western medical systems... to help clarify medicine's goals in relationship to those of a technological civilization."
The scope of the book includes both historical and practical discussions of medicine and methods of philosophy. It gives us both a definition and a critique of medicine and provides an excellent discussion of what is required for the development of clinical judgment as the