How Legal Theory Can Save the Life of Healthcare Ethics

Ann M Heesters is the Senior Director of Clinical and Organisational Ethics at the University Health Network and an Assistant Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health where she is a course co-director in the MHSc program at University of Toronto's Joint Centre for Bioethics. She has recently joined The Institute for Education Research (TIER) as a Clinical Investigator 2, and looks forward to forging exciting new relationships and reuniting with her old love, Education. Ann has practiced in the field of bioethics for more than twenty years and established ethics services in two Canadian provinces. Ann has an abiding interest professionalizing the work of health care ethicists and was a founding member of PHEEP (Practicing Healthcare Ethicists Exploring Professionalization) and an early director of CAPHE-ACESS (the Canadian Association of Practicing Healthcare Ethicists - Association canadienne des ethiciens en soins de sante). Ann is a student of Philosophy and generally endorses Ronald Dworkin's view that "Absolute confidence or clarity is the privilege of fools and fanatics."

Introduction.- Chapter 1: A Compromised and Ineffectual Field?.- Chapter 2: Conflicted Consultants: Surveying the Canadian Context.- Chapter 3: Scrutinizing the Standing of Principles: The Politics of Bioethics.- Chapter 4: Ethics as Interpretation: Lessons from Legal Theory.- Chapter 5: Professionalization for PHES: The Promise of a Practice Worth Wanting.