Physicians are obligated in many jurisdictions to perform life-sustaining treatments on premature infants with serious developmental or physical impairments, even if it goes against the parents' wishes.
David Collier, MD, PhD, Ronald M. Perkin, MD, MA, and Joseph R. Zanga, MD
The legal definitions of child neglect and child abuse are not as clear cut when faced with the issue of whether parents should be held responsible for failing to follow weight-loss plans for a morbidly obese child.
Refusals of psychotropic medication by detained criminal defendants raise conflicting dual loyalties for psychiatrists between the duty to treat a patient and the duty to protect society from that patient.
Dr Kelly Gillespie joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Taleed El-Sabawi: “When Medication Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder Gets Disrupted by Extra-Clinical Variables, How Should Clinicians Respond?”
A case that describes how treatment decisions for a seriously ill baby should consider the advice and recommendations of the medical team as well as the parental preferences for the child's care.
Physicians need to carefully explain the difficult medical realities of carrying a fetus with severe congenital abnormalities to term but then follow the wishes of a religious family who ask for reasonable medical care.