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Hey guys, I was just wondering - there was a book frequently mentioned on this site about ethics but I can't remember the name.

 

If someone knows what I'm talking about, can you tell me the name of the book and the author who is writing it?

 

I can't seem to find the thread where I initially read the title and the search doesn't seem to be working for me on this site.

 

Thanks.

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I bought it and found it useful for my interviews by being able to implement examples and topics into my answers. It gives a good foundation of medical ethics in Canada.

 

Yeah it is pretty much the base book for most ethics review for interviews it seems. At least you have the foundation after reading it and know all the terms.

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this is the book.

 

i got it from the library, but i know that i will buy it later

i'm not sure what i'm waiting for lol

maybe a new edition will come out and i dont want to regret it

 

The first edition was published in 1996, while the second was in 2008.

If he stays consistent, you should have a while to enjoy that edition.

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I read Doing Right after I got into med and found it to be a bit preachy, prescriptive and patronizing, it reminded me of the scene in Dead Poet's Society where they have a formula for assessing a poems "objective value".

 

IMO, it's not an ethics book any more than any law book is an ethics book. It's a book about common situations and how to abide by our pre-conceived codes of conduct, which are capricious and so culturally biased, constructivist, based in the law (avoiding lawsuits), and related to business interests it isn't even funny.

 

It's probably a good book for canned MMI answers but I don't think it holds any credence for the rigours of real life ethical decisions, I think you would be better served by taking a philosophy class in ethics, in terms of developing thinking skills for ethical problems in practice; you really learn to think on your own. If you don't have time to take a class try the genealogy of morals by Nietschze or some of Sarte's books on morality, Foucalt is also excellent, especially for mental health ethics, but he focusses a lot on medicine in general. Once you read this kind of stuff you start to laugh at these kind of books when it considers itself as anything more than guidelines not to get in trouble.

 

Sorry to be overly philosophical, it's just my nature, Doing Right will definitely help for your MMI, but you're just going to be saying what everyone else is saying. Being able to discuss all the different possibilities, choices, consequences and the relativity of each situation while acknowledging what the current guidelines are would make you so much of a stronger candidate, I want to see someone who can think and be critical, not just listen to Joe Shmoe, PhD's opinion and reverberate it, and if I was questioning someone I would throw in all sorts of weird twists to the story after people had given their answers to see if people could adapt their responses, lol.

 

Anyhoo, yeah, it's still a good read nonetheless! But it teaches you how to think about ethics about as well as reading the statutes about marriage in Texas teach you about thoughts on living living egalitarian society where everyone has equal marriage rights and why it would be desirable or not.

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I read Doing Right after I got into med and found it to be a bit preachy, prescriptive and patronizing, it reminded me of the scene in Dead Poet's Society where they have a formula for assessing a poems "objective value".

 

IMO, it's not an ethics book any more than any law book is an ethics book. It's a book about common situations and how to abide by our pre-conceived codes of conduct, which are capricious and so culturally biased, constructivist, based in the law (avoiding lawsuits), and related to business interests it isn't even funny.

 

It's probably a good book for canned MMI answers but I don't think it holds any credence for the rigours of real life ethical decisions, I think you would be better served by taking a philosophy class in ethics, in terms of developing thinking skills for ethical problems in practice; you really learn to think on your own. If you don't have time to take a class try the genealogy of morals by Nietschze or some of Sarte's books on morality, Foucalt is also excellent, especially for mental health ethics, but he focusses a lot on medicine in general. Once you read this kind of stuff you start to laugh at these kind of books when it considers itself as anything more than guidelines not to get in trouble.

 

Sorry to be overly philosophical, it's just my nature, Doing Right will definitely help for your MMI, but you're just going to be saying what everyone else is saying. Being able to discuss all the different possibilities, choices, consequences and the relativity of each situation while acknowledging what the current guidelines are would make you so much of a stronger candidate, I want to see someone who can think and be critical, not just listen to Joe Shmoe, PhD's opinion and reverberate it, and if I was questioning someone I would throw in all sorts of weird twists to the story after people had given their answers to see if people could adapt their responses, lol.

 

Anyhoo, yeah, it's still a good read nonetheless! But it teaches you how to think about ethics about as well as reading the statutes about marriage in Texas teach you about thoughts on living living egalitarian society where everyone has equal marriage rights and why it would be desirable or not.

 

Yeah you cannot stop with that book and expect to really know anything about ethics. It just provides the vocabulary and simple examples. None of those examples actually really include serious conflict between the ethics principles that have to be worked out, which is exactly what would have to be done in a more realistic situation :)

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Thanks for the opinion. It sounds helpful so I'm going to read it, but I'll keep what you said in mind and try to realize that it's more for basic prep and not a true help in actual life discussions.

 

I also agree regarding outlining your thought process and (if I were to get an MMI interview) I would definitely try and do what you were talking about - explaining different possible situations and their consequences and then discuss why I think the option I chose is the best out of them, etc.

 

I read Doing Right after I got into med and found it to be a bit preachy, prescriptive and patronizing, it reminded me of the scene in Dead Poet's Society where they have a formula for assessing a poems "objective value".

 

IMO, it's not an ethics book any more than any law book is an ethics book. It's a book about common situations and how to abide by our pre-conceived codes of conduct, which are capricious and so culturally biased, constructivist, based in the law (avoiding lawsuits), and related to business interests it isn't even funny.

 

It's probably a good book for canned MMI answers but I don't think it holds any credence for the rigours of real life ethical decisions, I think you would be better served by taking a philosophy class in ethics, in terms of developing thinking skills for ethical problems in practice; you really learn to think on your own. If you don't have time to take a class try the genealogy of morals by Nietschze or some of Sarte's books on morality, Foucalt is also excellent, especially for mental health ethics, but he focusses a lot on medicine in general. Once you read this kind of stuff you start to laugh at these kind of books when it considers itself as anything more than guidelines not to get in trouble.

 

Sorry to be overly philosophical, it's just my nature, Doing Right will definitely help for your MMI, but you're just going to be saying what everyone else is saying. Being able to discuss all the different possibilities, choices, consequences and the relativity of each situation while acknowledging what the current guidelines are would make you so much of a stronger candidate, I want to see someone who can think and be critical, not just listen to Joe Shmoe, PhD's opinion and reverberate it, and if I was questioning someone I would throw in all sorts of weird twists to the story after people had given their answers to see if people could adapt their responses, lol.

 

Anyhoo, yeah, it's still a good read nonetheless! But it teaches you how to think about ethics about as well as reading the statutes about marriage in Texas teach you about thoughts on living living egalitarian society where everyone has equal marriage rights and why it would be desirable or not.

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I bought Doing Right for my MMI.

 

I read about half a chapter and then stopped because I had a lot of other stuff to do at the time. So I essentially didn't use it. It all depends on the school. For instance, I don't think reading the book puts you at any advantage for Calgary.

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Like muse and rmorelan, I have to agree about "Doing Right."

 

I heard a lot of mixed reviews about it so instead of buying the book, I decided to just get it from the library. I ended up going to the Toronto Reference Library and going through the first couple of chapters in a few hours. While it was certainly helpful prep for my Queen's MMI and Western panel in terms of a beginner medical ethics book, it was by no means deeply insightful. It just helped me be aware of the different aspects to think of when tackling an ethics problem (the book heavily focuses on the justice of medicine, autonomy and beneficence), but most of the scenarios were so simple, it was mostly common sense stuff.

 

I'd suggest browsing through the book at a bookstore or the library before buying it.

 

Also, like newcanmeds2011, I found CMAJ very helpful (probably more than Doing Right) --> http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/collection/bioethics_for_clinicians_series

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I'm going to add my two cents: I think it's true that Doing Right isn't a very serious book on medical ethics, but it can have a lot of practical value for MMI prep.

 

In the book are many different ethical cases or scenarios. I simply treated each of these scenarios as a practice MMI question. I gave myself two minutes to read and think about the scenario, then took as long as I could to answer the prompt. My goal was to hit every discussion point mentioned by the author.

 

Although not perfect, I found this strategy a great exercise in practicing my MMI skills - being able to recall details from the prompt and structure my answer in a logical way so that I didn't need any notes and could answer smoothly. It also helped in being able to "think outside the box," in the sense that I sometimes missed a facet of the issue. A couple times making these mistakes helped me develop the skill of looking at questions more broadly, from several ethical perspectives.

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