Jointly written by an academic surgeon and an analytic philosopher with a special interest in medical ethics, Trust in Medicine should appeal to those participating in the ongoing debate about the nature and decline of trust - be it as medical professionals, medical ethicists, medical lawyers, or philosophers.

Markus Wolfensberger is Emeritus Professor of Otorhinolaryngology at the Universität Basel, Switzerland. Until his retirement in 2010, he was Head of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery as well as Director of the Head Neck Tumour Centre at the University Hospital of Basle. He also holds a doctorate in medical ethics and was, for many years, chair of the Clinical Ethics Advisory Board at the University Hospital of Basle. His particular interest, both as a surgeon and as a researcher, was in cancer of the head and neck. As a clinical ethicist one of his major interests was in preventing unnecessary and over-aggressive treatment.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Introduction; 2. Empirical evidence for the decline of trust; Part II. The Nature of Trust: 3. A critical analysis of existing definitions of trust in medicine; 4. Proposing a new type of definition: the pattern-based definition; 5. A Pattern-based definition of trust; 6. Differentiating trust from related concepts; 7. Adapting the definition of trust to different situations; Part III. Justification of Trust: 8. Justification of epistemic trust; 9. Justification of patients' trust in physicians; Part IV. Significance of Trust: 10. Instrumental utility of trust; 11. The moral value of trust; Part V. The Decline of Trust: 12. Reasons for the decline of trust; Part VI. Perspectives: 13. Can we restore trust? List of references; Index.