FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 328:67 January 7, 1993 Number 1 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited

By Howard Brody. 311 pp. New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 1992. $30. ISBN 0-300-05174-3.

Doctors are inherently powerful. In The Healer's Power, family physician-philosopher Howard Brody argues that medical ethicists should avoid using the principle of autonomy to whittle away at physicians' power. Instead, those in the field of ethics should help doctors better understand and use their Aesculapian, charismatic, and social powers.

Aesculapian power is gained through training in the discipline, art, and craft of medicine. This power arises from the knowledge of facts, techniques, and treatments; it is an impersonal power and can be transferred to another physician. Charismatic power is based on the physician's particular personal qualities, such as courage, decisiveness, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

HOME  |  SUBSCRIBE  |  SEARCH  |  CURRENT ISSUE  |  PAST ISSUES  |  COLLECTIONS  |  PRIVACY  |  HELP  |  beta.nejm.org Comments and questions? Please contact us. The New England Journal of Medicine is owned, published, and copyrighted © 2008 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.