Healthcare Law and Ethics, 7th Edition © 2025

Healthcare Law and Ethics helps all health professionals respond to the legal and ethical dilemmas they’ll encounter in their chosen field. Written for the nonlawyer health professional, the title uses real legal cases and stimulating exercises to guide students through real applications of the material, across medical settings.

The thoroughly updated 7th edition has been renamed Healthcare Law and Ethics to reflect its focus on the entire healthcare team. New examples and content cover the needs of many more healthcare disciplines, from advanced practice providers to medical assistants and emergency medical personnel.

Hallmark features of this title

Real-world applications

• Legal case citations demonstrate how healthcare disciplines collaborate in patient care, while illuminating medical topics subject to US legal requirements.
• Case studies at the start of each chapter demonstrate practical applications of chapter content.
• Discussion cases in each chapter are great as assignments or to generate in-class debate.

Thinking critically about law and ethics

• Put It into Practice activities at the end of each chapter prompt learners to contemplate everyday legal and ethical issues.
• Points to Ponder questions help students evaluate how they might deal with today’s legal and ethical dilemmas in healthcare.
• Short-answer, matching and multiple-choice exercises let students test their comprehension of chapter content.

New and updated features of this title

A more sweeping focus on the entire healthcare team

• Expanded: New examples and content cover many more healthcare disciplines such as advanced practice providers (nurse practitioners and physician assistants), nurses, medical assistants, physical therapists, occupational therapists, respiratory therapists and emergency medical personnel.
• Enhanced: Reviewers from a variety of healthcare disciplines have helped to round out the content.

Legal and ethical responsibilities of the health professional

• Expanded: Professional obligations are expanded upon in topics such as scope of practice and licensure (Ch. 2), patient rights (Ch. 5) and cultural considerations in medical practice (Chs. 8 and 14).
• Expanded: Clinical obligations are now more fully addressed in sections covering substance use and misuse (Ch. 7), end-of-life issues (Chs. 11 and 13) and updates in reproductive care (Ch. 12).

Coverage of timely issues

• Expanded: New chapter introductory cases cover issues such as hospitals being shut down by ransomware attacks (Ch. 9) and abortion after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision (Ch. 12).
• New: A new section examines the ethics of healthcare advances (Ch. 14) such as telehealth, use of robotics, concierge healthcare and artificial intelligence.