The intricate 3D structure of the CNS lends itself to multimedia presentation, and is depicted here by way of dynamic 3D models that can be freely rotated, and in over 200 illustrations taken from the successful book “The Human Central Nervous System” by R. Nieuwenhuys et al, allowing the user to explore all aspects of this complex and fascinating subject. All this fully hyperlinked with over 2000 specialist terms. Optimal exam revision is guaranteed with the self-study option. For further information please contact: http://www.brainmedia.de/html/frames/pr/pr 5/pr 5 02.html

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ACS Surgery is the first reference of general surgery to carry the name of the American College of Surgeons. Developed to help practicing surgeons make critical decisions on patient care, it is an evidence-based reference of surgical best practices from leaders in the field. An extraordinary resource, ACS Surgery combines the most current information in surgery with practical advice and time-saving convenience.

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The third edition of A guide to effective care in pregnancy and childbirth will be invaluable to anyone involved in the care of pregnant women, and to expectant parents. This updated guide summarizes the most authoritative evidence available on the effects of care practices carried out during pregnancy, childbirth, and immediately after birth, in a clear and readily understandable format. In addition to the details provided in the text, the book concludes with six valuable tables that list the practices which are beneficial, those of unknown effectiveness, and those likely to be ineffective or harmful. Based on the most systematic review to date, this comprehensive guide presents the main findings and conclusions in an easily readable, inexpensive, and conveniently-sized form. This third edition has been completely updated to include the new research evidence available since publication of the previous edition. Previous editions have received critical acclaim for conclusions based on sound evidence and have become a unique reference source for evaluating care policies and practices.

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The goals of healthcare and health policy, and the health-related dilemmas facing policy makers, professionals, and citizens are extensively analysed and debated in a range of disciplines including public health, sociology, and applied philosophy. Health and the Good Society is the first full-length work that addresses these debates in a way that cuts across these disciplinary boundaries. Alan Cribb’s core argument is that clinical ethics needs to be understood in the context of public health ethics. This entails healthcare ethics embracing ‘the social dimension’ of health in two overlapping senses: first, the various respects in which health experiences and outcomes are socially determined; and second, the ways in which health-related goods are better understood as social rather then purely individual goods. This broader approach to the ethics of healthcare includes a concern with the social construction of both healthcare goods and the roles, ideals, and obligations of agents; that is to say it focuses upon the ‘value field’ of health-related action and not only upon the ethics of action within this value field. This groundbreaking book thus seeks to ‘open up’ the agenda of healthcare ethics both methodologically and substantively: it argues that population-oriented perspectives are central to all healthcare ethics, and that everybody has some share of responsibility for securing health-related goods including the good of greater health equality. One of its major conclusions is that the rather limited tradition of health education policy and practice needs a complete re-think.

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Since the debut of the original edition, the Handbook of Psychodiagnostic Testing has been an invaluable aid to students and professionals performing psychological assessments. The new Fourth Edition continues in that tradition, taking the reader from client referral to finished report, demonstrating how to synthesize details of personality and pathology into a document that is focused, coherent, and clinically meaningful.

As with the previous editions, authors Kellerman and Burry offer a systematic framework for choosing the most relevant material from seemingly overwhelming amounts of test data. Separate chapters offer clear rationales for each component of the report (e.g., cognitive functioning, interpersonal behavior, control mechanisms), and how they relate to one another. Helpful summaries follow each chapter, and tables and charts provide salient facts and findings at a glance.

Features of the updated Fourth Edition: A clear blueprint for writing effective, clinically integrative psychological reports; Emerging areas of interest in testing, including ethnic and language issues; Guidelines for assessing strengths and potential as well as pathology; Review of current diagnostic nomenclature, with discussion of evolving DSM categories and recognized clinical entities outside the DSM system; Brand-new sections on the major standardized intelligence tests; Expanded chapter devoted to testing counselors, teachers and parents; Help for writing–anxiety: overcoming blocks, getting past role conflicts, resisting speculation, and more.

The Handbook makes an elegant student resource by showing how reports can reflect not just the subject’s individuality, but the tester’s as well. All professionals who engage in psychological assessment will find it an invaluable resource as well.

Lainie Ross presents a rigorous critical investigation of the development of policy governing the involvement of children in medical research. She examines the shift in focus from protection of medical research subjects, enshrined in post-World War II legislation, to the current era in which access is assuming greater precedence. Infamous studies such as Willowbrook (where mentally retarded children were infected with hepatitis) are evidence that before the policy shift protection was not always adequate, even for the most vulnerable groups. Additional safeguards for children were first implemented in many countries in the 1970s and 1980s; more recent policies and guidelines are trying to promote greater participation. Ross considers whether the safeguards work, whether they are fair, and how they apply in actual research practice. She goes on to offer specific recommendations to modify current policies and guidelines. Ross examines the regulatory structures (e.g. federal regulations and institutional review boards), the ad hoc policies (e.g. payment in pediatric research and the role of schools as research venues), the actual practices of researchers (e.g. the race/ethnicity of enrolled research subjects or the decision to enroll newborns) as well as the decision-making process (both parental permission and the child’s assent), in order to provide a broad critique. Some of her recommendations will break down current barriers to the enrolment of children (e.g. permitting the payment of child research subjects; allowing healthy children to be exposed to research that entails more than minimal risk without requiring recourse to 407 panels); whereas other recommendations may create new restrictions (e.g., the need for greater protection for research performed in schools; restrictions on what research should be done in the newborn nursery). The goal is to ensure that medical research is done in a way that promotes the health of current and future children without threatening, to use the words of Hans Jonas, ‘the erosion of those moral values whose loss . . . would make its most dazzling triumphs not worth having’.

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Forensic mental health assessments are evaluations conducted by individuals from different disciplines on a variety of questions in civil, criminal, and family law. A growing number of mental health professionals, including psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, are being called upon to assess everything from an individual’s competence to stand trial to the risk or threat of future violence, and asked to weigh in on cases ranging from murder and assault to malpractice and child custody.” General principles have emerged to guide professionals conducting forensic mental health assessment. Forensic Mental Health Assessment: A Casebook illustrates those principles using relevant, real-world case material. Built around actual case reports from expert forensic psychologists and psychiatrists, the volume probes a broad range of legal questions through the detailed examination of more than 40 cases. Topics include Miranda rights waiver, competence to act as one’s own attorney, competence to stand trial, juvenile commitment, sanity at the time of the offense, child custody, termination of parental rights, guardianship, and malpractice. This is the first casebook focusing specifically on forensic assessment. It contains cases from a broad range of civil, criminal, and family legal questions, described in case reports contributed by expert forensic psychologists and psychiatrists. It will be useful for anyone involved in assessments for the courts and attorneys, including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and attorneys.

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Public health is an important and fast-developing area of ethical discussion. In this volume a range of issues in public health ethics are explored using the resources of moral theory, political philosophy, philosophy of science, applied ethics, law, and economics. The twelve original papers presented consider numerous ethical issues arise within public health ethics. To what extent can the public good or the public interest justify state interventions that impose limits upon the freedom of individuals? What role should the law play in regulating risks? Should governments actively aim to change our preferences about such things as food, smoking or physical exercise? What are public goods, and what role (if any) do they play in public health? To what extent do individuals have moral obligations to contribute to protecting the community or the public good? Where is it appropriate to concentrate upon prevention rather than cure? Given the fact that we cannot be protected from all harm, what sorts of harm provide a justification for public health action? What limits do we wish to place upon public health activities? How do we ensure that the interests of individuals are not set aside or forgotten in the pursuit of population benefits? An excellent line-up of authors from North America, Europe, and the UK tackle these questions.

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Simona Giordano presents the first full philosophical study of ethical issues in the treatment of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Beginning with a comprehensive analysis of these conditions and an exploration of their complex causes, she then proceeds to address legal and ethical dilemmas such as a patient’s refusal of life-saving treatment. Illustrated with many case-studies, Understanding Eating Disorders is an essential tool for anyone working with sufferers of these much misunderstood conditions, and for all those ethicists, lawyers, and medical practitioners engaged with the widely relevant issues they raise.

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