{"id":433,"date":"2011-12-04T17:58:22","date_gmt":"2011-12-04T16:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=433"},"modified":"2017-08-08T19:16:27","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T18:16:27","slug":"ayesha-ahmad-review-of-doing-clinical-ethics-by-dr-daniel-sokol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2011\/12\/04\/ayesha-ahmad-review-of-doing-clinical-ethics-by-dr-daniel-sokol\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayesha Ahmad: Review of &#8216;Doing Clinical Ethics&#8217; by Dr Daniel Sokol"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since Hippocrates in early 5 B.C., Medicine has carried an \u2018<em>angel on its shoulder<\/em>\u2019; a reflexive gaze on the skill, and phenomenologies of healing between the doctor and his patient. Ethics is a code, a practice, and a guide amid the terrain of the hands that tend to the body using instruments of medicine\u2019s enterprise. Referring to the Oath:<\/p>\n<p>\u2018<em>I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts<\/em>\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Sokol, Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London and recently qualified barrister, undertook the challenge of fitting \u2018ethics\u2019 into our contemporary medical practice; whereby Medicine is confronted by a body unprecedented in relation to the ways in which we can perceive, examine, intervene, create, and prolong the existence of our bodies; our lives.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->\u2018<em>Doing Clinical Ethics<\/em>\u2019 is a negotiation; a way of uniting the clinicians who either \u201c<em>have a passion for medical ethics<\/em>\u201d or \u201c<em>could not give a fig for it<\/em>\u201d. Clinicians need to learn to \u201c<strong>do<\/strong>\u201d ethics. \u2018<em>Doing Clinical Ethics<\/em>\u2019 is a valid, contemporary, and explanatory guide for practicing ethics in medicine and Sokol provides subtle yet convincing arguments for why clinicians need to focus on the body of doctrines, principles, and theories that is ethics alongside the descriptive (and prescriptive), intricate, and verifiable discourses about the human body.<\/p>\n<p>Decisions need to be made about how to treat the body &#8211; regardless of our contemporary knowledge about the body, this information is bracketed from the \u2018lived-ness\u2019 that the body is socially, culturally, and historically contextualized in.<\/p>\n<p>Written in a seemingly casual writing style to grip even the most tired of minds, there is also an intriguing and captivating rhythm to Sokol\u2019s words. He uses case-studies throughout, which are illustrative of the stories that medical practice is narrating; the telos of the surgeon, for example, is to craft the body possessing \u201c<em>technical skill<\/em>\u201d but also inherently directed to execute the ethical principles of beneficence and non-maleficence. Moral perception is necessary for moral action.<\/p>\n<p>Though Sokol attempts to present ethics on a surface level \u2013 of what we may see in medicine \u2013 there is also a pretext, a sub-conscious presence in the case-studies, the illustrations, and explanations of ethical frameworks that becomes its centrifugal point; why we must care about ethics; our virtues of actors in scenes where the audience are vulnerable; juxtaposed between their lives and their deaths. Not all of medicine has been good medicine; our history of medicine has been limited during its development, and as Shaprio (1978) famously stated\u00a0the history of medicine is a history of the placebo.<\/p>\n<p>Undoubtedly, though, contemporary medical practice is dealing with a body with a \u201cmetaphysics that is shrouded in darkness\u201d (McMahan 2003) and the moral status of the beginnings and endings of life are obscured further by the ability of machines, medication, and medical technology to push these boundaries; our definitions of life are altering and so must the way we operate ethically; Sokol\u2019s book shows us the new generation of the \u2018ethical body\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Most essential to practicing ethics in our contemporary academic and clinical settings is the latter half of the book that focuses on issues such as publishing, teaching clinical ethics, and submitting an application to a Research Ethics Committee (REC).<\/p>\n<p>Rarely do we have access to such insightful and experienced advice on these crucial tasks. Though \u2018ethics\u2019 comes across as somewhat an \u2018object\u2019 in these contexts, it does highlight the demands that are being made in our contemporary environment; practicing ethics is representative of the entire medical discourse, and not reducible to particular cases that have been brought to the forefront due to a \u2018tension\u2019 or \u2018conflict\u2019. Sometimes, our ethical questions are set in clinical uncertainty and unchartered terrain. However, Sokol shows that ethics can be practiced even amid the ambiguity posed by of \u2018shades of grey\u2019 and be ethically fulfilling.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, \u2018<em>Doing Clinical Ethics<\/em>\u2019 should be an integral part of medical education as well as facilitating both the newer and older generations practicing medicine today. We cannot shy away from the lives that transcend the reductive body in medicine; ethics is married to medicine; \u2018<em>Doing Clinical Ethics<\/em>\u2019 certainly provides the sustenance required to make this a long-lasting relationship!<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">For more information and on how to buy the book, please see below link:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.springer.com\/medicine\/book\/978-94-007-2782-3\">http:\/\/www.springer.com\/medicine\/book\/978-94-007-2782-3<\/a><!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since Hippocrates in early 5 B.C., Medicine has carried an \u2018angel on its shoulder\u2019; a reflexive gaze on the skill, and phenomenologies of healing between the doctor and his patient. Ethics is a code, a practice, and a guide amid the terrain of the hands that tend to the body using instruments of medicine\u2019s enterprise. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2011\/12\/04\/ayesha-ahmad-review-of-doing-clinical-ethics-by-dr-daniel-sokol\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2965],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ayesha Ahmad: Review of &#039;Doing Clinical Ethics&#039; by Dr Daniel Sokol - Medical Humanities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2011\/12\/04\/ayesha-ahmad-review-of-doing-clinical-ethics-by-dr-daniel-sokol\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ayesha Ahmad: Review of &#039;Doing Clinical Ethics&#039; by Dr Daniel Sokol - Medical Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Since Hippocrates in early 5 B.C., Medicine has carried an \u2018angel on its shoulder\u2019; a reflexive gaze on the skill, and phenomenologies of healing between the doctor and his patient. 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