Testing the Medical Covenant

Book excerpt: William F. May, a leading expert on medical ethics, here explores two of today's most crucial tests of the medical covenant - active euthanasia and health care reform.May begins with an incisive introduction that delineates the covenantal, or relational, nature of the practice of medicine over against the merely contractual view - the quid pro quos of the commercial buying and selling of professional services. In the subsequent chapters, May follows the implications of the medical covenant with respect to the related issues of euthanasia and health care reform. He also provides a covenantal view of professional character and virtue - what virtues we should look for in covenanted physicians and nurses - discusses the limits of the medical covenant in the face of medical futility, and examines the implications of covenant keeping for the shape of future health care reform.