Professionalism and Ethics

An interactive, case-oriented approach to mental health ethics, Professionalism and Ethics: Q & A Self-Study Guide for Mental Health Professionals consists of questions and answers that draw on sixteen experts' personal experience in the care of people with mental illness, in mental health research, and in clinical training.

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This first book of its kind for the medical profession brings the real-world translation of ethics to the care of patients, conduct of protocols, and training of professionals. An interactive, case-oriented approach to mental health ethics, Professionalism and Ethics: Q & A Self-Study Guide for Mental Health Professionals consists of questions and answers developed by the authors and fourteen contributors from backgrounds as diverse as family medicine, research ethics, social psychology, and public health. They draw on personal experience in the care of people with mental illness, in mental health research, and in clinical training to generate scenarios that pose ethical questions. Some questions are narrow and to the point, such as responding to a suspicion of child abuse; others require a more nuanced approach, such as dealing with conflict of interest posed by a pharmaceutical company. They then resolve these questions in alignment with an understanding of ethical principles, the standards of their fields, the law, and the expectations of mental health professionals.


The brief case descriptions that frame each ethical question echo the real-life complexities of clinical practice and are presented in single-answer, multiple-choice format modeled after key medical licensure and specialty certification organizations. Following an overview of ethics and professionalism, questions cover four broad areas: core concepts, clinical care, medical research, and interactions with colleagues and trainees. Explanations following the questions offer background information about relevant ethical concepts and related legal and clinical considerations. A subsequent section features another set of questions for self-assessment, followed by answers with citations to appropriate references. The book's overall approach is geared to underscore the following areas of concern:


• Essential ethical skills, such as understanding how personal values affect patient care, recognizing high-risk situations in which ethical problems arise, and building ethical safeguards
• Core ethical principles, including nonmaleficence, beneficence, autonomy, respect, justice, veracity, fidelity, and privacy
• Key clinical ethics issues, including maintaining therapeutic boundaries, patient non-abandonment, informed consent and treatment refusal, alternative decision making and advance directives, confidentiality, reporting colleague misconduct, and caring for difficult patients.


Trainees and experienced clinicians alike will be richly rewarded by considering the dilemmas posed here. Developed with an extensive review process, reference verifications, and iterative crosschecks, this book facilitates professionalism as a core competency in medicine as it instills the need for ongoing consideration of ethical behaviors and principles in the daily practice of psychiatry.