Edited by D Thomasma and J Kissell. Georgetown University Press, 2000, £46.75, pp 300. 0-87840-810-X

• Thomasma D, Kissell J, editors The Health Care Professional as Friend and Healer: Building on the work of Edmund Pellegrino

This book is dedicated to Dr Pellegrino and the editors invited those to whom he was leader and friend to contribute chapters on topics that have marked his career over the years. It is in four parts: the nature of the health care professional; the moral basis of health care; current challenges, and medical education. The tone is set by an initial seminal chapter from Leo O’Donovan SJ entitled A Profession of Trust: Reflections on a Fundamental Virtue. As the subtitle indicates, it builds on Pellegrino’s work to do with the idea of the internal morality of medicine. Both Pellegrino and MacIntyre have developed this concept, originating in the work of both Aristotle and Plato. In …