Medical Law, Ethics, and Bioethics in the Medical Office, 3d ed.

This book is written primarily for the medical office worker who encounters a vast array of legal and ethical issues on a daily basis. As a curriculum text, this book would serve the medical assistant well, with excellent examples of case situations. The relevance to other disciplines, although not directly evident, does have some merit when considering the similarities in patient-care practices. The constant reminder, however, that the physician is an employer and that the employee is responsible to that figure permeates the writings. Because it is a text written for the medical assistant or physician's office worker, it is appropriate and serves that purpose very well.

The authors provide a comprehensive treatise covering essentially all related legal and ethical topics in a brief and concise manner when necessary and in more detail when approptiate. A large portion of the book is centered on general liability issues and the business of running a medical office. This includes descriptions of ownership, types of employees, the importance of law to the physician, public duties, types of consents and problems with implementation, medical records, collection practices, and hiring practices. The final portion of the book addresses ethics and bioethical issues and includes allocation of scarce resources, genetics engineering, abortion, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, life and death, and lastly, dying and death.

The information contained in this latest edition is up-to-date. This seems to be a good text of choice for those who are studying to be medical assistants, or even a valuable reference text for any medical office. The information presented is reliable, with good supportive references and bibliographies at the end of each chapter.

Concise chapters and subchapters allow for easy, organized reading from section to section. Excellent vignettes capsulize what issues will follow in the writings. Numerous examples complement the text, along with figures and diagrams explaining different topics that allow the reader to better conceptualize the topics addressed. Each chapter begins with learning objectives and pertinent definitions. Surprisingly, there are typographical errors in spelling and printing throughout the text.

Although direct relevance to the physical therapy practitioner is limited, this book is interesting to read. If the author changed the areas that refer specifically to the physician and his or her position with a more generic practitioner, the worthiness of the text would be more relevant.

In summary, this is a good book, but its audience is limited primarily to the medical assistant. The continuous reminders of the physician as the employer are difficult to ignore. Prior editions have not been reviewed; however, future editions would be more beneficial if the text was expanded to include any clinical practitioner as the deliverer of patient care in the office setting.