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Geriatric Medicine pp 38–47Cite as

Ethical Problems in Geriatric Medicine

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Abstract

The complexity of modern medical care produces dilemmas and conflicts in which an ability to understand and explicitly address issues of moral choice and value differences is essential to the practicing physician. Ethical dilemmas are not rare or esoteric events. It is impractical and unnecessary to take every ethical problem to court, and every health care institution does not have a consultant ethicist or an ethics committee. Day-to-day decisions must be made as they arise. Therefore, in addition to technical competence in medicine, the geriatrician also must attain a certain level of ethical competence.

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Authors
  1. Christine K. Cassel
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Section of General Internal Medicine, The University of Chicago Medical Center, 60637, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Christine K. Cassel M.D. (Chief) (Chief)

  2. Journal of the American Medical Association, 60610, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Donald E. Riesenberg M.D. (Senior Editor, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine) (Senior Editor, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine)

  3. Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Donald E. Riesenberg M.D. (Senior Editor, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine) (Senior Editor, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine)

  4. Department of Medicine, Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Leif B. Sorensen M.D., Ph.D. (Associate Chief) (Associate Chief)

  5. Geriatric Medicine, Portland V.A. Medical Center, 97207, Portland, Oregon, USA

    John R. Walsh M.D. (Chief) (Chief)

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© 1990 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Cassel, C.K. (1990). Ethical Problems in Geriatric Medicine. In: Cassel, C.K., Riesenberg, D.E., Sorensen, L.B., Walsh, J.R. (eds) Geriatric Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2093-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2093-8_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-2095-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-2093-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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