Paula Tironi, JD, LLM and Monique M. Karaganis, MD
While parents often have legal authority to make decisions regarding pediatric palliative care, federal and state statutory and case laws, like CAPTA, impose significant restrictions on that authority.
U.S. courts have ruled that device manufacturer representatives’ presence in the operating room does not make them responsible for the supervision of physicians or liable for the practice of unauthorized medicine.
Physicians do not have to give therapies or perform procedures that they judge to be futile and Catholic patients have the moral right to determine what is extraordinary or ordinary care.
Clinical case and commentary on how physicians should respond when confronted by medication requests from parents of children with mood and concentration disorders.
Frank A. Chervenak, MD and Laurence B. McCullough, PhD
Clinical facts and physicians’ ethical obligations are critical in resolving disagreements between parents and physicians about resuscitation of an extremely premature infant.