This book is 100% great - it goes in to evey aspect you could want to know about the relationship of Law and medicine. Areen is a great author and continues to teach at Georgetown Law Center in D.C. - I have read this book twice - and it's just great.

I read this book years ago, and came to Amazon.com to try to purchase it. How delighted I am to see that it is being reprinted for publication.

Though it was written a long time ago, its central conclusion is still valid. All too often, patients are not fully informed about health care interventions recommended to them by doctors. Thus, they often choose to undergo treatments that subject them to painful, demoralizing consequences that they were just not told could happen. Katz's examples may seem dated. For example, how many of us even remember the daily news reports of Dr. Barney Clark's tragic events after he became the first man to receive an artificial heart. But the paternalism he describes, the failure to trust that people can make good choices regarding their personal health care when fully informed still exists as we approach the millenium. How else to explain the hue and outcry when an NIH consensus conference failed to simply recommend mammograms ! for women aged 40 to 49? When they recommended that doctors talk to their patients, and that the patients then decide for themselves what is best for them, they were lambasted. To me, the world of doctor and patient is still all too often silent. And as the mammography example demonstrates, those who advocate breaking the silence are often treated badly.

The Silent World of Doctor and Patient is well-written. It discusses the all too common failure of doctors to fully inform their patients about the risks they undertake when they recommend treatments. It tries to explain why such is the case. It reveals the sometimes horrible consequences that can befall patients when medical treatment goes awry.

I highly recommend this book, especially to medical students, doctors in training, and all who believe that patients should be fully informed about the medical care that has the power to harm as well as to heal.