Theological Analyses of the Clinical Encounter

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xx

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2. The Medical Covenant Past, Present, and Future

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Interpreting the Physician-Patient Relationship: Uses, Abuses, and Promise of the Covenant Model

      • Ron Hamel

      Pages 3-27

   3. The Medical Covenant: An Ethics of Obligation or Virtue?

      • William F. May

      Pages 29-44

   4. Trust in the Clinical Encounter: Implications for a Covenant Model

      • Ed Dubose

      Pages 45-66

3. Principles in Revision

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 67-67

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   2. Autonomy and Trust in the Clinical Encounter: Reflections from a Theological Perspective

      • David C. Thomasma, Edmund D. Pellegrino

      Pages 69-84

   3. Exousia: Healing with Authority in the Christian Tradition

      • Daniel P. Sulmasy

      Pages 85-107

   4. Conflicting Loyalties: Beneficence — Love Within Limits

      • John W. Glaser

      Pages 109-132

   5. Empowerment in the Clinical Setting

      • Karen Lebacqz

      Pages 133-147

4. Beyond Principles

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 149-149

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   2. Listening to the Different Voices: Toward a More Poetic Bioethics

      • Paul Lauritzen

      Pages 151-169

   3. Reason, Narrative and Rhetoric: A Theoretical Collage for the Clinical Encounter

      • Sandra W. Churchill, Larry R. Churchill

      Pages 171-184

   4. Illness and the Other

      • Richard M. Zaner

      Pages 185-201

   5. Cultural Diversity and the Clinical Encounter: Intercultural Dialogue in Multi-Ethnic Patient Care

      • Elizabeth Heitman

      Pages 203-223

   6. Theology, Ethics, and Clinical Encounters: Possibilities for Reconciliation?

      • Jonathan R. Sande

      Pages 225-233

5. Back Matter

   Pages 235-243

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Efforts to evaluate the clinical encounter in terms of autonomous agents governed by rationally justified moral principles continue to be criticised. These essays, written by physicians, ethicists, theologians and philosophers, examine various models of the clinical encounter emerging out of these criticisms and explore the prospects they offer for theological and religious discourse. Individual essays focus on the reformulation of covenant models; revisions of principles approaches; and topics such as power, authority, narrative, rhetoric, dialogue, and alterity. The essays display a range of conclusions about whether theology articulates generally accessible religious insights or is a tradition-specific discipline. Hence the volume reflects current debates in theology while analysing current models of the clinical encounter. Students, professionals, and scholars who find themselves at the intersection of theology and medicine will welcome these voices in an ongoing conversation.

• autonomy
• beneficence
• bioethics
• ethics
• morality

• Rice University, Houston, USA

  Gerald P. McKenny

• Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA

  Jonathan R. Sande

Policies and ethics