A new book explores ethical decisionmaking when clinicians and parents disagree about medical treatment for a child.
When Doctors and Parents Disagree Ethics, Paediatrics and the Zone of Parental Discretion develops and explores a concept called the zone of parental discretion: an ethical tool that aims to balance children’s wellbeing and parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children.
Written by experienced clinical ethicists and paediatric clinicians, this book offers ethical analysis and practical guidance based on reallife clinical cases. It aims to assist doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and clinical ethics staff to deal with these ethically challenging situations.
Part I – An ethical tool: the zone of parental discretion
1. The zone of parental discretion
2. Within the ZPD: focusing on harm and children’s interests
Part II – Roles of doctors and parents in decisionmaking
3. So, do we really need doctors anyway? Information, expertise and the changing dynamic between doctors and families
4. Who should decide for critically ill neonates and how? The grey zone in neonatal treatment decisions
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.