Bioethics, once a part of ??law and medicine,?? is an expanding field of inquiry that is now generally recognized as a discipline in its own right ?? one that attracts widespread attention and interest. As a result there is a great deal of interest in the subject and now there is a casebook, which rewards that interest. The Garrison-Schneider teaching materials link the practical problems the area richly presents with larger conceptual issues about how law works and American culture functions; offer students a vivid sense of the realities of life in the patient??s hospital room, the doctor??s examination room and the hospital lawyer??s office, and draw not simply on cases and statutes, but on patients?? accounts of their illnesses, doctors?? reports of encounters with patients, ethicists?? reflections on doctor's duties, sociologists?? investigation of life in hospitals, and psychologists?? studies of how doctors and patients make decisions.