Sometimes, life-saving treatments have serious negative consequences. This month, AMA Journal of Ethics digital editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux discusses strategies for communicating about iatrogenic outcomes with Dr. Robert Nelson, a senior pediatric ethicist with the Food and Drug Administration, with a particular focus on how to enlist parents as allies in high-stress pediatric cases.
This month, AMA Journal of Ethics theme editor Trisha Paul, a second-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School, interviewed Kelly Parent about what makes patient- and family-centered care an inclusive approach to health care delivery and how this approach is being implemented.
It is often difficult for the clinical team to accept a patient’s family members as allies rather than adversaries. Close relatives know more about the patient than members of the medical team and may well share some of the patient’s values.
After the infant’s birth, the neonatologist’s first duty is to his or her patient—the newly born infant. If clinical circumstances are different than anticipated, the physician must first consider the best interests of the baby.
Thoughtful design can welcome patients’ families’ roles in promoting healing. At the same time, clinicians’ need for functionality and privacy is critical. How ought these considerations be balanced in designing the spaces where patient care takes place?
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(1):73-76. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.18.1.sect1-1601.