The following appeared in Volume 98, Number 2 (Spring, 1999) of the APA Newsletters

This issue of the Newsletter is rich in thought-provoking material, rich in teaching materials, and rich in book reviews. Featured articles include "The Anatomy Lesson," "Gay and Lesbian Health Care as Politics/Ethics," and "Flourish Your Heart in This World." Then, in six essays there are reviews of nine books.

"The Anatomy Lesson" by Steve Miles, is a short paper on the experience of a medical student in the gross anatomy laboratory and the later reflections by the mature physician on gifting of cadavers and the history of the practice. It is an interesting exploration and should be a useful tool for those of us who work with first-year medical students.

Timothy Murphy’s challenging paper, "Gay and Lesbian Health Care as Politics/Ethics," raises important criticisms of medicine and warns us of the recent flare up of gay-baiting. Using gay and lesbian health care as his focus, he reminds us of the danger of incorporating political agendas into medical policy and practice. He also focuses attention on the American Medical Association’s peculiar Principle of Medical Ethics, VI. While the other six principles constrain physicians’ behavior to the narrow limits of morality, Principle VI allows that "[a] physician shall . . . be free to choose whom to serve." As Murphy is aware, this moral sanction by the AMA invites economic and social discrimination, which should be anathema to medicine.

Felicia Ackerman has provided us with her latest short story on a medical ethics theme. "Flourish Your Heart in This World" is another engaging and imaginative tale. This one raises two timely and highly controversial issues and presents her novel, politically incorrect positions. Through her vivid narrative Ackerman invites the reader to question the commonly embraced values of hospice care and to dispute the nearly univocal criticism of cloning human beings. This story can be a useful tool for motivating classroom discussion.

Our book review section includes reviews of an array of new and important titles in bioethics. Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate, a collection of papers edited by Margaret Battin, Rosamond Rhodes, and Anita Silvers, is reviewed Karin Brown. Robert Baker has contributed "The Birth of Bioethics: Three Perspectives," his reviews of four recently published volumes on the birth of bioethics: Bioethics and Society: Constructing the Ethical Enterprise by Raymond DeVries and Janardan Subedi, The Birth of Bioethics by Albert R. Jonsen, and John Gregory and the Invention of Professional Medical Ethics and the Profession of Medicine and also John Gregory’s Writings on Medical Ethics and the Philosophy of Medicine both by Laurence B. McCullough. Mark Sheehan has reviewed Bioethics: A Return to Fundamentals, Bernard Gert, Charles M. Culver, and K. Danner Clouser’s alternative to the four principles approach to bioethics. Some Choice by George Annas is reviewed by Blake Sypher in his "The Language of Medical Ethics." The Politics of Women’s Health: Exploring Agency and Autonomy, edited by Susan Sherwin, is reviewed by Julie M. Zilberberg. And Classic Works in Medical Ethics: Core Philosophical Readings, edited by Gregory Pence, is reviewed by Martin Harvey.

Please feel free to volunteer your papers, comments, stories, poems, your book reviews, or your comments on papers IN THE LITERATURE. Please continue to send in notices of events and activities that you would like to have announced in these pages. Anything to be announced in the Fall 1999 issue should reach me by July 15, 1999. Items should be sent to me at the address below. Submissions should follow the Guidelines at the front of the Newsletter. Please include both a disk and a printed copy and a telephone number or email address.

Rosamond Rhodes
Box 1108
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, CUNY
One Gustave Levy Place
New York, NY 10029

Phone: 212-241-3757
Fax: 212-427-7862
E-mail: rhodes@smtplink.mssm.edu