Sissela Bok

The Limits of Confidentiality

In an article adapted from her book Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation, Bok discusses the concept of confidentiality and its relation to secrecy, privacy, and privileged communication. Three premises--autonomy over personal information, respect for shared secrets in human relationships, and obligations incurred in promises--justify confidentiality; a fourth--the benefits of confidentiality to those in need of advice, sanctuary, and aid--supports professional secrecy. The author presents examples of conflicts over confidentiality faced by health and other professionals in areas of competing legitimate claims.

Alva Myrdal : a daughter's memoir

Once described as the most modern woman in the world, Alva Mydral, diplomat, feminist, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and one of the founders of the Swedish welfare state, exemplifies both the triumphs and trials of women in this century. Sissela Bok, Mydrals daughter, has written a poignant, candid, and inspiring account of her mothers influential and exuberantly rich life. 16 pages of photographs.

Euthanasia and the Care of the Dying

creased power, new dilemmas have sprung up for physicians, and new anguish on the part of patients and those who are close to them. How far should a physician go in delaying death? Which of the many techniques for prolonging life can he in good conscience omit in caring for a terminally ill patient? What can a patient ask his doctor to do and to forbear, in those cases where there is a conflict between prolonging life and easing suffering? Is there anything a person can do before he becomes a patient, in order to decrease the chances of being reduced to intolerable levels of suffering, loneliness, and dehumanization? These dilemmas have often been discussed under the heading of euthanasia. The discussion, however, has been hampered by a dearth of relevant empirical information and by a lack of careful definitions, often resulting in conflicting assertions, impossible either to prove or to disprove, and expressing, rather, value premises of the most general kind. The articles in this series represent an effort to examine the existing practices and the concepts which underlie them, and to indicate what can be done to help patients cope with dying without breaking the fundamental restrictions which our society justly places on the taking of lives.