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Psychiatric Services, VOL. 51, No. 10

Book Review | October 01, 2000

Codes of Professional Responsibility: Ethics Standards in Business, Health, and Law, 4th edition

Paul S. Appelbaum, M.D.

Psychiatric Services 2000; doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.51.10.1326

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edited by Rena A. Gorlin; Washington, D.C., Bureau of National Affairs, 1999, 1,149 pages, $95

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What mental health professional does not face ethical challenges at every turn? Although most clinicians probably are aware of the guidance provided by the ethics codes of their own professional organizations, few benefit from the work of other groups. Yet because no profession has a monopoly on wisdom, a comparative approach to professional ethics has much to recommend it. That is precisely the virtue of this book.

Since the publication of the first edition in 1986, Codes of Professional Responsibility has compiled in one easily consulted reference the ethics codes of a growing number of major professions. Mental health professionals will find most relevant the codes of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, along with the products of the professional nursing, social work, and counseling groups. Also included is the code promulgated by the American Medical Association, along with that group's Current Opinions on ethics.

But there is no reason why a clinician puzzling through an ethical dilemma would have to stop there. At hand as well are the professional codes of the American Hospital Association and the organizations of dentists, chiropractors, and pharmacists, along with trial lawyers, accountants, journalists, lobbyists, and many others. The book also includes a list of ethics resources, including Web sites and listserves addressing issues in professional ethics.

The heftier fourth edition is probably not what you want to take along for light reading on your vacation. But if that sadly overused term "invaluable reference" can ever be justly applied, this is one book that deserves it.

Dr. Appelbaum is A. F. Zeleznik professor and chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.

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Paul S. Appelbaum; Codes of Professional Responsibility: Ethics Standards in Business, Health, and Law, 4th edition. Psychiatric Services. 2000 Oct;51(10):1326-1326.

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