Bioethics, Public Health, and the Social Sciences for the Medical Professions

This unique textbook utilizes an integrated, case-based approach to explore how the domains of bioethics, public health and the social sciences impact individual patients and populations. It provides a structured framework suitable for both educators (including course directors and others engaged in curricular design) and for medical and health professions students to use in classroom settings across a range of clinical areas and allied health professions and for independent study. 

The textbook opens with an introduction, describing the intersection of ethics and public health in clinical practice and the six key themes that inform the book's core learning objectives, followed by a guide to using the book. It then presents 22 case studies that address a broad spectrum of patient populations, clinical settings, and disease pathologies. Each pair of cases shares a core concept in bioethics or public health, from community perspectives and end-of-life care to medical mistakes and stigma and marginalization. They engage learners in rigorous clinical and ethical reasoning by prompting readers to make choices based on available information and then providing additional information to challenge assumptions, simulating clinical decision-making. In addition to providing a unique, detailed clinical scenario, each case is presented in a consistent format, which includes learning objectives, questions and responses for self-directed learning, questions and responses for group discussion, references, and suggested further reading. All cases integrate the six themes of patient- and family-centered care; evidence-based practice; structural competency; biases in decision-making; cultural humility and awareness of the culture of medicine; and justice, social responsibility and advocacy. The final section discusses some challenges to evaluating courses and learning encounters that adopt the cases and includes a model framework for learner assessment.

• Bioethics
• Decision-making
• Evidence-based practice
• Global health
• Marginalization
• Medical ethics
• Patient-centered care
• Population health
• Public health
• Public policy
• Social medicine
• Social responsibility
• Structural competency

• Center for Bioethics and Humanities and Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, USA

  Amy E. Caruso Brown

• Departments of Pediatrics and Public Health and Preventive Medicine, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, USA

  Travis R. Hobart

• Department of Interprofessionalism, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, Roanoke, USA

  Cynthia B. Morrow

Amy E. Caruso Brown, MD, MSc, MSCS

SUNY Upstate Medical University

Center for Bioethics and Humanities

Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Department of Pediatrics

Syracuse, New York, USA

Travis R. Hobart, MD, MPH

SUNY Upstate Medical University

Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine

Department of Pediatrics

Syracuse, New York, USA

Department of Interprofessionalism

Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine

Roanoke, Virginia, USA