Chris Feudtner, MD, PhD, MPH, David Munson, MD, and Wynne Morrison, MD
The way that we choose how to frame the conversation with parents about halting or continuing such therapy for their children who will not recover has special importance in medicine and in society.
Guidelines for proceeding with a plan of care when family members have conflicting opinions about the patient’s wishes and the patient does not speak the same language as her physicians.
The Catholic Health Association of the United States has chosen to allow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to supersede Pope John Paul II’s allocution on patients in a permanent vegetative state.
Direct sterilization by means of tubal ligation is morally unacceptable in Catholic bioethics but other procedures that result in indirect sterilization may be acceptable under certain conditions.
Catholic medical school education and the Catholic health care systems in the U.S. emphasize the moral growth of the physician and respect for the body, mind and spirit of patients.