Health care is one of the most important challenges of the 21st-century. Medical advances have made it very difficult for health care providers, patients, and their families to keep pace with the ethical problems inherited with new procedures. Ethicists must meet the demands of medical research, government regulations, and Church directives.

Among the issues under discussion are embryonic stem cell research, end-of-life care, organ transplants, genetic engineering, and advance health care directives.

Making Health Care Decisions is a practical Catholic guide on these issues. It provides an overview of Catholic medical ethics, with references for further reading, discussion questions, and a glossary of medical and ethical terminology.

Four topics from this book are also available in booklet form for people with specific needs and questions.

Ron Hamel is ethicist at the Catholic Health Association in St. Louis, Missouri. Other contributors include Michael R. Panicola, Mark Miller, Richard C. Sparks, M. Therese Lysaught, Carol Tauer, and Patricia Talone.

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