Robert Buckman: How to break bad news: A guide for health care professionals. Johns Hopkins UP 1992, 220p. 0-8018-4491-6 (pbk). $ 16. A fine book, says the reviewer. The author introduces a six-step protocol for breaking bad news. Daniel Callahan: Setting limits. Medical goals in an ageing society. Simon & Schuster 1987. 5933 Alain Deloche: Medici all'inferno. Muzzio 1993. Un chirurgo nell'Alto Volta, in Cambogia, nella giungla dei Karen tra Birmania e Tailandia, in Eritrea, a Saigon, a Sarajevo. Tra il 1974 e il 1992. Alain Deloche e' un chirurgo cardiaco all'ospedale Broussais, il piu' grande centro europeo per le operazioni a cuore aperto, e' cofondatore e presidente onorario di Medecins du Monde, e ha creato in seno a questa associazione la Mission France e la Chaine de l'Espoir. 5610 Donald Gould: Other people's pregnancies. New Scientist 28 August 1993, 44-45. A dangerous kind of arrogance arises from the fact, says the author of this essay (and I agree very much), that experts assume and presume proprietorial rights over the bits and pieces of the physical or living world which they happen to have studied (and I remember well a physicist who used to teach us about "my electrons"). Archaeologists alone have, so they think, a right to discovery of ancient repositories, and they complain bitterly, when an amateur treasure seeker discovers a bunch of Roman amulets. When your gastroenterologist discovers that you have duodenal ulcer, the affected part of your digestive tract immediately becomes his property. The same thing happens to any woman who becames heavy with a child. Julius Hackethal: Der Meineid des Hippokrates. Von der Verschwo''rung der A''rzte zur Selbstbestimmung des Patienten. Lu''bbe. DM 42. 1527 T. Harrison: Principles of internal medicine. McGraw-Hill 1983. Tact, sympathy and understanding are expected of the physician, for the patient is no mere collection of symptoms, signs, disordered functions, damaged organs, and disturbed emotions. He is human, fearful, and hopeful, seeking relief, help and reassurance. To the physician, as to the anthropologist, nothing human is strange or repulsive. The misanthrope may become a smart diagnostician of organic disease, but he can scarcely hope to succeed as a physician. The true physician has a Shakespearean breadth of interest in the wise and the foolish, the proud and the humble, the stoic hero and the whining rogue. He cares for people. [From the introduction.] 11756 Wolfgang Hiddemann: Die Verantwortung des Arztes im 21. Jahrhundert. Spektrum 1998/2, 46-50. Harvey Mandell/Howard Spiro: When doctors get sick. Plenum 1987. 11758 Onora O'Neill: Kodizes und ihre Umsetzung. Spektrum 1998/2, 53-57. 11757 Viktor Pickl: Medizinische Ethik und Patientenschutz. Spektrum 1998/2, 50-53. 6090 Howard Spiro: The optimist. Science & Medicine 1994/3, 6-7. When a doctor gets sick. Howard Spiro a.o. (ed.): Empathy and the practice of medicine. Yale UP 1993.