Malignant: Medical Ethicists Confront Cancer

Abstract

This book tells the cancer stories of seven people who work in the field of medical ethics. They write not only about matters widely identified as 'official' medical ethics topics, such as breaking bad news and treatment decision-making, but also about what might be called 'hidden' ethics topics, such as cancer stereotypes and survivor responsibilities. They discuss what life was like during and after surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, the burdens treatment imposed, how they coped with them, and the points at which the treatments became overwhelming. They also describe not only what cancer taught them about medical care and medical ethics, but what cancer taught them about themselves. Throughout the book, the authors expand customary notions of medical ethics, to go beyond ethics in the medical setting to ethics in the social and personal worlds of serious illness.

Keywords: cancer stories, medical ethics, cancer stereotypes, survivor responsibilities, cancer treatment