The greatest pressure to resuscitate the extremely low-birth-weight infant often results from successful marketing efforts that lead families to expect that their premature infants will be cute and healthy.
The legal definition of a patient and the corresponding duties of the physician have been debated in state courts for over a century, and many aspects of the question are still unresolved.
Rather than turning away children whose parents refuse to have them vaccinated, pediatricians should engage the parents in discussion about the importance and safety of vaccination.