African American Bioethics: Culture, Race, and Identity

by Lawrence J. Prograis Jr. (Editor), Edmund D. Pellegrino (Editor), Edmund D. Pellegrino (Contribution by), J. L. A. Garcia (Contribution by), Annette Dula (Contribution by)

Overview

Do people of differing ethnicities, cultures, and races view medicine and bioethics differently? And, if they do, should they? Are doctors and researchers taking environmental perspectives into account when dealing with patients? If so, is it done effectively and properly?

In African American Bioethics, Lawrence J. Prograis Jr. and Edmund D. Pellegrino bring together medical practitioners, researchers, and theorists to assess one fundamental question: Is there a distinctive African American bioethics?

The book's contributors resoundingly answer yes—yet their responses vary. They discuss the continuing African American experience with bioethics in the context of religion and tradition, work, health, and U.S. society at large—finding enough commonality to craft a deep and compelling case for locating a black bioethical framework within the broader practice, yet recognizing profound nuances within that framework.

As a more recent addition to the study of bioethics, cultural considerations have been playing catch-up for nearly two decades. African American Bioethics does much to advance the field by exploring how medicine and ethics accommodate differing cultural and racial norms, suggesting profound implications for growing minority groups in the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781589012325
Publisher:	Georgetown University Press
Publication date:	05/03/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lawrence J. Prograis Jr., MD, is senior scientist, Special Programs and Bioethics, Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institutes of Health.

Edmund D. Pellegrino, MD, is the John Carroll Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics Emeritus at Georgetown University. He is the coeditor of Jewish and Catholic Bioethics.

Table of Contents

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction

Culture and Bioethics: Where Ethics and Mores MeetEdmund D. Pellegrino

Chapter 1. Revisiting African American Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics: Distinctiveness and Other QuestionsJorge L. A. Garcia

Chapter 2. The Moral Weight of Culture in EthicsSegun Gbadegesin

Chapter 3. Whitewashing Black Health: Lies, Deceptions, Assumptions and Assertions—And the Disparities ContinueAnnette Dula

Chapter 4. Race, Equity, Health Policy, and the African American CommunityPatricia A. King

Chapter 5. Religion and Ethical Decision Making in the African American Community: Bioterrorism and the Black Postal WorkersCheryl J. Sanders

Chapter 6. Personal Narrative and an African American Perspective on Medical EthicsEzra E. H. Griffith

Chapter 7. Does an African American Perspective Alter Clinical Ethical Decision Making at the Bedside?Reginald L. Peniston

Chapter 8. Race, Genetics, and EthicsKevin FitzGerald and Charmaine Royal

Afterword: An African American's Internal Perspective on Biomedical EthicsLawrence J. Prograis, Jr.

Contributors Index

Editorial Reviews

The contributors provide a compelling case for locating an African-American framework for bioethics. Practitioners, researchers, and theorists will find this book worth reading. There is no compendium on the subject like it.

New England Journal of Medicine

African American Bioethics: Culture, Race, and Identity represents an excellent contribution to the field of bioethics. It has implications for those who want to study further the social effects of health care and bioethics on other racial and ethnic non-dominant groups living in the United States and seek to access its health care delivery system.

Health Progress

Reviewer: Daniel Bustillos, JD, PhD (Saint Louis University)
Description: This is a collection of essays by African-American bioethicists attempting to answer the question: "Is there a distinctive African-American cultural perspective on bioethics?"
Purpose: This aim is to revisit the polemic about the alleged distinctiveness of African-American bioethics 16 years after the issue was first raised in African-American Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics, Flack and Pellegrino (Georgetown University Press, 1992).
Audience: This book is of special interest to anyone involved in the care of African-Americans or interested in cross-cultural bioethics and the ways in which culture, history, disparities, etc., can influence cross-cultural healthcare.
Features: Thoroughly researched and compellingly argued, this slim volume features cogent and enlightening essays from people who straddle the various cultures of American biomedicine and Americans of African descent. The multiplicity of views and voices underscores the fact that there is no one African American bioethic, but there is indeed a clustering of perspectives whose commonality issues from the more or less common histories and narratives that make up the rich experience of "African-American."
Assessment: This book goes a long way toward dispelling many of the facile notions of bioethics among African-Americans including that there is a monolithic culture or bioethic among them. It is especially useful in arguing that although distrust in American biomedicine is prevalent and harmful in Black communities, the distrust is rational and to be expected given the abusive history and continued racism that are a part of the medical establishment. The authors call for renewed dialogue, research, and commitments from all sectors to improve understanding and trust, which can lead to better health for African-Americans.

Doody's Review Service