Ethics in Pediatric Care

Published on 22/03/2015 by admin

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Chapter 3 Ethics in Pediatric Care

Eric Kodish, Kathryn Weise

Pediatric ethics is a branch of bioethics that analyzes moral aspects of decisions made relating to the health care of children. In general terms, the autonomy driven framework of adult medical ethics is replaced by a beneficent paternalism (or parentalism) in pediatrics. Pediatric ethics is distinctive because the pediatric clinician has an independent fiduciary obligation to act in a younger child’s best interest that takes moral precedence over the wishes of the child’s parent(s). For older children, the concept of assent suggests that the voice of the patient must be heard. These factors create the possibility of conflict among child, parent, and clinician. The approach to the ethical issues that arise in pediatric practice must include respect for parental responsibility and authority balanced with a child’s developing capacity and autonomy. Heterogeneity of social, cultural, and religious views about the role of children adds complexity. Children are both vulnerable and resilient, and represent the future of our society.

Assent and Parental Permission

The doctrine of informed consent has limited direct application to children and adolescents who lack decisional capacity. The capacity for informed decision-making in health care involves the ability to understand and communicate, to reason and deliberate, and to analyze conflicting elements of a decision using a set of personal values. The age at which a competent patient may legally exercise voluntary and informed consent for medical care varies from state to state and may be limited to specific conditions (sexually transmitted infections, family planning, drug or alcohol abuse).

In contrast to decisions about one’s own care, a parent’s right to direct a child’s medical care is more limited. For this reason, the term parental consent is misleading. The concept of parental permission (rather than consent) reflects a surrogate or proxy decision made by a parent on behalf of a child. It is constrained both by the child’s best interest and the independent obligation of clinicians to act in the child’s best interest, even if this places them in conflict with a parent. In any given instance, the decision of what is or is not in a child’s best interest may be difficult, especially given the diverse views of acceptable child rearing and child welfare. Parents are (and should be) granted wide discretion in raising their children. In cases involving a substantial risk of harm, the moral focus should be on avoiding or preventing harm to the child, not on a parental right to decide. While the term “best” interests may be too high of a threshold requirement, a minimum standard of “basic” interests is ethically obligatory.

Respect for children must account for both a child’s vulnerability and developing capacity. This respect encompasses both the protective role of parental permission and the developmental role of child assent (the child’s affirmative agreement). Understanding the concept of assent is one of the major conceptual challenges in pediatric ethics. The dissent (or disagreement) of a child is the opposite of assent and is also morally relevant. Pediatric ethics requires clinicians and parents to override a child’s dissent when a proposed intervention is essential to his or her welfare. Otherwise, assent should be solicited and dissent should be honored. In seeking younger children’s assent, a clinician should help them understand their condition, tell them what they can expect, assess their understanding and whether they feel pressured to assent, and solicit their willingness to participate. All efforts must be made to delineate situations in which the test or procedure will be done regardless of the child’s assent/dissent, and in such cases the charade of soliciting assent should be avoided. There is an important distinction between soliciting assent and respectfully informing a child that a test or procedure will take place regardless of their decision. Optimally an educational process can transpire (if time allows) to gain the trust and assent of the child-patient. When this cannot occur, pediatric ethics requires that clinicians apologize to a child for acting to override dissent.

Older children or adolescents may have the cognitive and emotional capacity to fully participate in health care decisions. If so, the adolescent should be provided with the same information as would be given to an adult patient. In cases like this, the patient may be able to provide informed consent ethically but not legally. The adolescent’s parent(s) remain in a guiding and protective role. The process of communication and negotiation will be more complex should disagreement arise between the parent and adolescent (see Adolescent Health Care).

Treatment of Critically Ill Children

Infants, children, and adolescents who become critically ill may recover fully, may die, or may survive with new or worsened limitations of function. Uncertainty about outcomes can make planning goals of care difficult, or if misunderstandings between patient, families, and medical staff occur, may drive conflict over treatment proposals. Ethical issues that arise during critical illness include balancing benefits, burdens, and harms of therapy in the face of uncertainty; maintaining a helpful degree of transparency and communication about medical standards of care at an institution; understanding and respecting religious and cultural differences that impact requests for or refusal of treatments; defining limits of therapy based on assessments of medical futility; recognizing the moral equivalence of not starting an ineffective treatment and stopping (though the 2 acts may feel very different to families and providers); and controversies such as withholding medically administered nutrition and hydration.

Transitioning the Goals of Care

Most children who die in an intensive care unit (ICU) do so after a decision has been made to either limit or withdraw (forgo) life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT), and the same may apply in the chronically ill population. LSMT is justified when the anticipated benefit of returning to or sustaining an acceptable quality of life outweighs the burdens to the patient; the availability of technology does not in and of itself obligate its use. Decisions to use, limit, or withdraw LSMT should be made after careful consideration of all pertinent factors recognizable by both family and medical staff, including medical likelihood of particular outcomes, burdens on the patient and family, religious and cultural decision-making frameworks, and input by the patient when possible. Although fear of legal repercussions may sometimes drive treatment, in general, medical advice and ultimate decisions should be based on what is thought to be best for the patient rather than based on fears of litigation.

The concept of futility has been used to support unilateral forgoing of LSMT against the wishes of patients and families by holding that clinicians should not provide futile (or useless) interventions. When a medical intervention is defined narrowly as futile based on the impossibility of achieving the desired physiologic outcome, this approach could support a medical goal of doing no harm. However, this approach may not adequately engage professionals and families in understanding facts and values that might allow the same therapy to reach other goals, and may leave medical and family stakeholders in permanent conflict. If agreement cannot be reached through clear and compassionate communication efforts, further input can be sought from ethics consultants.

Communication about life-threatening or life-altering illness is challenging, and requires skills learned through both modeling and practice. These skills include choosing a setting conducive to what may become 1 or more long conversations; listening carefully to children’s and families’ hopes, fears, understanding, and expectations; explaining medical information and uncertainties simply and clearly without complicated terms and concepts; conveying concern and openness to discussion; and being willing to share the burdens of decision-making with families by giving clear recommendations. Discussing difficult topics with children requires an understanding of child development, and can be aided by professionals such as child psychologists or child life specialists. Because such conversations and their outcomes have a large impact on the future care of the patient, on families, and on medical staff, ongoing evaluation of goals and communication about them is needed with families and within complex medical teams as the course of the illness unfolds.

Experts recognize that good medical care involves providing for communication, symptom management, and a range of supportive services from the onset of acute illness. In this way, if in spite of aggressive therapies an illness proves to be life-limiting, the elements of palliative care are already in place. This concept has had difficulty gaining traction, especially in critical care settings, because of the mistaken conflation of broadly defined palliative measures with hospice care. Palliative care interventions focus on the relief of symptoms and conditions that may detract from quality of life regardless of the impact on a child’s underlying disease process, and as such are important whether care is focused on cure or on transitioning to end-of-life care (Chapter 40). Some interventions regarded as life-sustaining, such as chemotherapy, may be ethically acceptable in the end-of-life setting if their use decreases pain and suffering rather than results only in prolonging death.

Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatment

Limitation of interventions or withdrawal of existing therapies are ethically acceptable if they are congruent with a plan of care focused on comfort and improved quality at the end of life rather than cure. The prevailing view in Western, traditional medical ethics is that there is no moral distinction between withholding or withdrawing interventions that are not medically indicated. Uncertainty in predicting a child’s response to treatment may drive the initiation of burdensome interventions. It is necessary to continually evaluate the results of these treatments and the evolution of the illness to recognize whether such burdensome interventions continue to be the best medical and moral choices. Maintaining the focus on the child rather than on the interests of medical staff will help guide decision-making.

The decision about whether or not to attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation may become an issue to discuss with parents of children living with life-threatening or terminal conditions. All elements of end-of-life care approaches, including resuscitation status, should be supportive of agreed-on goals of care. It is imperative that decisions and plans are effectively communicated to all caregivers in order to avoid denying medically effective interventions and measures to ensure comfort. Orders about resuscitation status should clarify the plan regarding mechanical ventilation, the use of cardiac medications, chest compressions, and cardioversion. Because goals of care may change over time, a medical order regarding resuscitation is not irrevocable. Clinicians may assume that the absence of a do-not-attempt-resuscitation (DNAR) order obligates them to perform a prolonged resuscitation. This action may not be ethically supportable if resuscitative efforts will not achieve the desired physiologic endpoint. In all cases, treatments should be tailored to the child’s clinical condition, balancing benefits and burdens to the patient.

Advance Directives

An advance directive (AD) is a mechanism that allows patients and/or appropriate surrogates to designate the desired medical interventions under applicable circumstances. Discussion and clarification of resuscitation status should be included in advance care planning, and for children attending school in spite of advanced illness, may need to be addressed in that setting. Decisions regarding resuscitation status in the out-of-hospital setting can be an important component of providing comprehensive care.

The 1991 Federal Patient Self-Determination Act requires that health care institutions ask adult (>18 yr) patients whether they have completed an AD and, if not, inform them of their right to do so. Some states have approved the implementation of prehospital or “portable” ADs, through which adults may indicate their desire not to be resuscitated by emergency personnel. On a state-by-state basis, portable orders regarding resuscitation status may also apply to children. If DNAR orders exist for an infant or a child, it is important to communicate effectively about their intent among all potential caregivers, because nonmedical stakeholders such as teachers or sitters may not wish to be in the position of interpreting or honoring them. Some institutions have established local policies and procedures by which an appropriately executed outpatient AD can be honored upon a child’s arrival in the emergency department. Key features may include a standardized document format, review by an attending physician, ongoing educational, and involvement of a pediatric palliative medicine service. In cases involving prenatal diagnosis of a lethal or significantly burdensome anomaly, parents may choose to carry their fetus to term in order to cherish a short time with the infant after birth, but do not feel that resuscitation or certain other aggressive measures would support their well-considered goals of care. In this setting, a birth plan explaining the reasons for each choice can be developed by the parents and medical staff prior to delivery and shared with involved medical staff. This approach gives staff a chance to find other caregivers if they are uncomfortable with the approach, without abandoning the care of the child. If, after evaluation at birth, the infant’s condition is as had been expected, honoring the requested plan is ethically supportable and should be done in a way that optimizes comfort of the infant and family.

An adolescent with a chronic and/or life-threatening condition should be supported in developing an AD as part of a comprehensive plan for end-of-life care. This approach can involve parents, medical caregivers, and other professionals who are familiar with the child’s condition and developmental abilities to understand death and to express wishes concerning the end of life.

Artificial Hydration and Nutrition

Issues surrounding the withholding or withdrawing artificial hydration and nutrition are controversial, and interpretations are effected by parental, religious, and medical beliefs. Any adult or child who is fully dependent on the care of others will die as a result of not receiving hydration and nutrition. Case law has supported the withholding of artificially administered nutrition and hydration in the setting of adult vegetative or permanently unconscious patients who can be shown to have previously expressed a wish not to be maintained in such a state. This requires a valid AD, or for a surrogate decision-maker to speak on behalf of the patient’s known wishes. Because infants and many children have not reached a developmental stage in which such discussions would have been possible, decisions about stopping artificially administered nutrition and hydration as a limitation of treatment are more problematic, and are based on what families and caregivers decide best support comfort. In the imminently terminally ill child who is unaware of hunger, does not tolerate enteral feedings, and in whom family and staff agree that IV nutrition and hydration only prolong the dying process, it may be ethically supportable to withhold or withdraw these treatments based on a benefit-burden analysis.

The Doctrine of Double Effect

Treatment decisions at the end of life may include limitations of certain LSMT, or may involve the use of analgesic or sedative medications that some fear may shorten life, thereby causing death. Whether a patient is expected to recover or if death is the accepted outcome, medical caregivers are obligated to treat pain, dyspnea, severe anxiety, or other burdensome symptoms. In the terminally ill adult or child whose LSMT is being withdrawn in accordance with agreed-on goals of care, or in the spontaneously breathing patient who requires increasing doses of narcotics or benzodiazepines to maintain comfort, these acts may feel to the practitioner like they are causing death. It is generally accepted in Western medicine and in most major religions that the relief of pain and agitation under these circumstances is a moral good of such magnitude that potential secondary effects (such as respiratory depression or failing to prolong the dying process) are acceptable, albeit unintended consequences. Two key features of this “doctrine of double effect” (DDE) must be present for the actions to be ethically acceptable: (1) the unintended outcome of the medication or withdrawal of treatment (i.e., respiratory depression; earlier death) should not be the means of achieving the intended outcome (relief of pain or other targeted symptoms); and (2) intentionality is not a psychologic state, but an objective feature of the act itself (choice of medication, dose, timing, route of administration). The DDE provides a moral framework for the clinician who desires to provide compassionate end-of-life care without intending to accelerate the death of the terminally ill patient.

Care Of Disabled Newborns

In 1982, an infant with Down syndrome and esophageal atresia was allowed to die at 6 days of age at the parents’ request. Prior to this case becoming public, prevailing opinion was that withholding aggressive treatments from infants who were predicted to be significantly disabled from conditions such as Down syndrome or meningomyelocele was ethically acceptable, and was being done on advice of physicians who felt that they and families should be able to decide what was best for an individual infant. The public legal controversy resulted in federal child abuse legislation called the “Baby Doe Regulations,” prohibiting the withholding of medically beneficial treatment from disabled infants except under conditions of permanent unconsciousness, “futile” treatment, and “virtually futile” treatment that imposes excessive burdens on the infant. Today, treatment options and potential outcomes have improved, attitudes toward and social supports for disabled children have evolved, and initial aggressive treatment of infants with severe disabilities has become more common. Studies done since the Baby Doe Regulations went into effect indicate that most pediatricians supported parental rather than government control of such decisions, and felt that they were now constrained to institute treatments that served neither patients nor families well.

One consequence of the legislation was a shift from potential undertreatment to widespread overtreatment of severely disabled newborns, defined as life-prolonging treatment that, in the opinion of the physician, does not serve the interests of the child. The legislation has been difficult to enforce, and subsequent case law has upheld the right of a parent to decide to forgo LSMT in certain instances. The 2002 “Born Alive Act” defined a human being as any infant born alive at any stage of development. It has been thought by some to pose a risk to the ethical practice of providing palliative care for newborns, though many believe that no changes in patient management are necessary.

Active euthanasia of severely suffering disabled newborns has been legalized in the Netherlands, using a protocol designed to minimize risk of abuse and maximize transparency. While there may be some controversy over the subject in the USA, there is consensus that active euthanasia is not ethically acceptable in the care of infants and children.

Declaring Death and Organ Donation

Donation of solid organs necessary to support life can occur after a patient is declared dead based on either irreversible cessation of neurologic function of the brain and brainstem (death by neurologic criteria, or “brain death”) or a predetermined period of cardiac asystole (“non–heart-beating donor” or NHBD). In order to avoid a potential conflict of interest by surgeons or others caring for a potential organ recipient, the request for organ donation should be separated from the clinical discussion of either brain death or withdrawal of LSMT. Although clinicians may be the 1st providers to enter discussion about death and organ donation with family members during conversations about outcomes and options, detailed discussion of organ donation should be done by other individuals who are specifically trained for this purpose. This “decoupling” of clinical decision-making from a request for organ donation by trained individuals, perhaps by providing families with expert information without a perceived conflict of interest, has been associated with improved donation rates.

Death by Neurologic Criteria

Death by neurologic criteria (DBNC, commonly referred to as “brain death”) may be difficult for families to understand when the child appears to be breathing (albeit on a ventilator), pink, and warm to the touch, and when language such as “life support” is used at the bedside by staff. Studies have also documented clinician misunderstanding of the diagnosis of DBNC. For these reasons, strict criteria adhering to nationally accepted guidelines must be used to determine when irreversible cessation of brain and brainstem function has occurred, and to adequately document these findings (Chapter 63.1). Because the response to severe neurologic injury in the immature brain may differ from that of the mature brain, currently established guidelines require a longer period of observation of infants and younger children compared to older children or adolescents. The period of observation may be shortened through the use of a confirmatory test such as a cerebral perfusion study (demonstrating absent blood flow to the whole brain).

The states of New York and New Jersey allow families to object on religious grounds to the declaration of DBNC. In that situation, the clinical determination of the DBNC sets the stage for a discussion of forgoing LSMT, rather than the death of the patient. A unilateral decision not to initiate new or escalate existing interventions is ethically supportable under these circumstances, given the documented death of the patient. While it would seem to follow that a similar unilateral decision to withdraw existing interventions would also be supportable, this act is not in accordance with the intent of the state laws. Institutional procedures for conflict resolution, including involvement of the courts if necessary, should be followed.

Cardiac Death

NHBD protocols allow for organ procurement after cardiac asystole rather than after DBNC. Organ procurement from NHBD can occur under either controlled (after planned withdrawal of LSMT) or uncontrolled (after failed cardiopulmonary resuscitation [CPR]) circumstances, but in both cases require rapid removal of organs in order for subsequent transplantation to be successful. An increasing number of programs are instituting NHBD (also known as donation after cardiac death, or DCD) protocols after federal legislation began requiring accredited hospitals to address the issue in hopes of decreasing organ shortages. Hospitals can make policy that either allows or disallows the process. In adults, consent for donation by either means can be obtained from patients or surrogates; for children, parents or guardians would make the decision to donate.

Ethical concerns about NHBD protocols focus on 2 principles that have served as the basis for organ donation: (1) the “dead donor rule” limiting the donation of vital organs to those who are irreversibly dead (either by cardiac or neurologic criteria, not by both), and (2) the absence of conflict of interest between clinical care and organ procurement. With NHBD protocols, irreversibility has been declared at varying times after asystole occurs (usually 2-5 min), to avoid spontaneous return of circulation after forgoing CPR. Because there are rare case reports of spontaneous return of cardiac function after more than 5 min of asystole, some use a criterion of 10 min to ensure that spontaneous recovery of heart function will not occur. To avoid a potential conflict of interest during the NHBD process, there is a requirement for strict decoupling of end-of-life care after discontinuation of LSMT and presence of the transplant team. Unlike in the setting of DBNC, a patient who is being considered for NHBD remains alive until after asystole has occurred. Careful evaluation by the transplant team and organ procurement agency is performed prior to discontinuation of LSMT. Then, in most DBNC protocols the medical caregivers from the ICU continue to care for the patient until after death by cardiac criteria has been declared, and only then is the surgical transplant team allowed into the room to procure organs.

It is ethically imperative to correctly diagnose the state of death, whether by neurologic criteria or prior to organ donation after cardiac death. Doing so avoids the danger of removing life-sustaining organs from a living person. Strict adherence to an ethically sound protocol is the best way to prevent both the perception and the potential reality of mistakes related to the pronunciation of death and organ procurement.

Religious Or Cultural Objections To Treatment

Differences in religious beliefs or cultural norms may lead to conflict between patients, families, and medical caregivers over the approach to medical care. Pediatricians need to remain sensitive to and maintain an attitude of respect for these differences, yet recognize that an obligation exists to provide effective medical treatment to the child. An adult with decision-making capacity is recognized as having the right to refuse treatment on religious or cultural grounds, but children who have not yet developed this capacity are considered a vulnerable population that have a right to treatment. In situations that threaten the life of the child or that may result in substantial harm, legal intervention should be sought if reasonable efforts toward collaborative decision-making are ineffective. If a child’s life is imminently threatened, medical intervention is ethically justified despite parental objections.

Pediatric Ethics Committees And Ethics Consultation

Most hospitals have institutional ethics committees to assist with policy development, education, and case consultation. When these committees serve institutions caring for children, they may be referred to as pediatric ethics committees. Because of the important differences in approach between adult and pediatric ethics, member expertise on this committee should include those with special insight into the unique ethical issues arising in the care of children. Such committees generally provide ethics consultation advice without mandating action or being determinative. For the vast majority of decisions involving the medical treatment of children (including forgoing LSMT), pediatric clinicians and parents are in agreement about the desirability of the proposed intervention. Because of the ethical importance of assent, the views of older children should also be given considerable weight.

Pediatric ethics committees typically perform at least 3 different functions: (1) the drafting and review of institutional policy on such issues as DNAR orders and forgoing LSMT; (2) the education of health care professionals, patients, and families about ethical issues in health care; and (3) case consultation and conflict resolution. Although the process of case consultation may vary, ideally the committee (or consultant) should adopt a collaborative approach that uncovers all the readily available and relevant facts, takes into account the values of those involved, and balances the relevant interests, while arriving at a recommendation based on a consistent ethical analysis. One helpful approach involves consideration of the 4 following elements: (1) medical indications, (2) patient preferences, (3) quality of life, and (4) contextual features. Another framework based on principles would suggest attention to respect for persons, beneficence/nonmaleficence, and justice. Pediatric ethics committees often play a constructive role when parents and medical staff cannot agree on the proper course of action. Over the past several decades, these committees have acquired considerable influence and are increasingly recognized by state courts as an important aid in decision-making. The membership, policies, and procedures of a pediatric ethics committee should conform to accepted professional standards.

Newborn Screening And Genetic Testing

The Oxford Dictionary of Public Health defines screening as “the identification of a previously unrecognized disease or disease precursor, using procedures or tests that can be conducted rapidly and economically on large numbers of people with the aim of sorting them into those who may have the condition(s)…and those who are free from evidence of the condition(s).” Several programs, such as newborn screening for inborn errors of metabolism (Chapter 78; e.g., phenylketonuria [PKU] and hypothyroidism), are rightly counted among the triumphs of contemporary pediatrics. The success of such programs sometimes obscures serious ethical issues that continue to arise in proposals to screen for other conditions for which the benefits, risks, and costs have not been clearly established. Advances in genetics and technology have led to exponential growth in the number of conditions for which screening programs might be considered, with insufficient opportunity to study each proposed testing program.

The introduction of screening efforts should be done in a carefully controlled manner that allows for the evaluation of the costs (financial, medical, and psychologic) and benefits of screening, including the effectiveness of follow-up and treatment protocols. New programs should be considered experimental until the risks and benefits can be carefully evaluated. Screening tests that identify candidates for treatment need to have demonstrated sensitivity, specificity, and high predictive value, lest individuals be falsely labeled and subject to possibly toxic treatments or to psychosocial risks. As newborn screening tests are being developed, parents should be given the opportunity to exercise informed parental permission or refusal. However, once a particular screening test has been clearly demonstrated to benefit the individual or public health, there may be ambiguity about the need for a formal, active permission process.

A persistent ethical issue is whether screening should be voluntary (“opt in”); routine, with the ability to “opt out” or refuse; or mandatory. A voluntary approach entails an informed decision by parents before screening. Concern is often expressed that seeking informed consent is ethically inappropriate for tests of clear benefit, such as PKU screening, because refusal would constitute neglect. Routine testing with an opt out approach requires an explicit refusal of screening by parents who object to this intervention. The principal ethical justification for mandatory screening is the claim that society’s obligation to promote child welfare through early detection and treatment of selected conditions supersedes any parental right to refuse this simple and low-risk medical intervention. Obtaining parental permission for newborn screening may allow for more prompt and efficient responses to positive results and is clearly warranted when there is a research agenda (i.e., for incorporating experimental tests into established screening programs).

Genetic testing of young children for late-onset disorders such as the BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer risk genes has been the subject of some ethical controversy. Knowledge of increased risk status may lead to lifestyle changes that can reduce morbidity and the risk of mortality, or may precipitate adverse emotional and psychologic responses and discrimination. Because many adults choose not to be tested for late-onset disorders, one cannot assume that a child would want or will benefit from similar testing. Genetic testing of young children for late-onset disorders is generally inappropriate unless such testing will result in interventions that have been shown to reduce morbidity and mortality when initiated in childhood. Otherwise, such testing should be deferred until the child has the capacity to make an informed and voluntary choice. This ethical approach is founded on the work of philosopher Joel Feinberg’s writing on the “child’s right to an open future.”

Adolescent Health Care

Adolescent Assent and Consent

Many adolescents resemble adults more than they do children in their capacity to understand health care issues and to relate them to their life goals (Chapter 104). Teenagers may lack legally defined competency, yet they may have developed the capacity meet the elements of informed consent. There are also public health reasons for allowing adolescents to consent to their own health care with regard to reproductive decisions, such as contraception, abortion, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections. Strict requirements for parental permission may deter adolescents from seeking health care, with serious implications for their health and other community interests.

Counterbalancing these arguments are legitimate parental interests to maintain responsibility and authority for child rearing, including the opportunity to influence the sexual attitudes and practices of their children. Others claim that access to treatment such as contraception, abortion, or needle exchange programs implicitly endorses sexual activity or drug use during adolescence. The pediatrician’s role and behavior in these disputes will be influenced by his or her own moral beliefs but must weigh the potential outcomes of the course chosen. One guiding principle should be encouragement of children and adolescents to begin taking responsibility, with guidance, for their own health. This requires some input from parents or guardians but also some privacy during decision-making as they achieve developmentally anticipated separation from parental control.

Chronic Illness

The normal process of adolescent development involves gradually separating from parents, establishing self-confidence, asserting individuality, developing strong peer relationships, solidifying an ability to function independently outside the family, and taking on increasing autonomy in health care decisions. Most developmentally normal children greater than age 14 yr understand the implications of well-explained medical options as well as the average adult, and their input into their own care should be respected. For children living with chronic illness, the ability to make medical decisions for themselves may either occur earlier than for those who have been previously healthy, or may occur later if, because of illness, they have not been able to achieve normal developmental milestones or psychologic maturity. The clinician’s role involves assessment of the individual adolescent patient’s ability to understand the medical situation, to support the patient’s efforts to express wishes regarding medical treatment, to value and encourage parental expertise and involvement, and to foster cooperation and mutual understanding. This may be difficult in situations in which parents and adolescents disagree about life-sustaining treatments such as organ transplantation or chemotherapy, but many such conflicts may be resolved by exploring the reasons for the disagreement. Overriding an adolescent’s wishes should be done very infrequently, and only after careful consideration of the potential consequences of unwanted interventions.

Decisions in Terminally Ill Adolescents

Most adolescents share end-of-life decision-making with family members, though they may be conflicted or challenging to communicate with because of a growing sense of independence. Open communication and flexibility about treatment preferences may help teens cope with fears and uncertainties. Development of an age-appropriate AD may support the patient’s emerging autonomy by clarifying the adolescent’s wishes, while fostering a collaborative process among the patient, family, and medical caregivers. From the time of diagnosis of a life-threatening condition through the end-of-life phase, children should be included in a developmentally tailored process of communication and shared decision-making that builds a foundation of mutual respect and trust.

Research

The central ethical challenge of pediatric research is the need to balance protection of children from research risk against the ethical imperative of conducting studies to better the lives of future children. Research is defined in the federal regulations as “a systematic investigation designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.” For any research to be performed, the risks should be minimized and reasonable with respect to any anticipated benefits to the subjects and the importance of the resulting knowledge. The fact that some children derive a direct benefit from participation in research must also be considered, making it important to distinguish research with the prospect of direct benefit from nontherapeutic pediatric research. Because children are a vulnerable population, there are restrictions on the research risks to which a child may be exposed that contrast with the risk level acceptable for research with consenting adults. These restrictions function by limiting the kind of research institutional review boards (IRBs) are permitted to approve and by specifying the conditions under which parent(s) have the moral and legal authority to permit a child to participate in research.

Nontherapeutic research in children is the most ethically controversial because it holds no expected direct benefit for the subject. The prohibition against using a person (especially a child) solely as a means to an end has led some to argue that children should never be used in nontherapeutic research. The more widely held opinion is that children may be exposed to a limited degree of risk with IRB approval, parental permission, and assent if the child is capable. The federal regulations allow healthy children to participate in minimal-risk research regardless of the potential benefit to the child-subject. More controversially, the regulations also state that children with a disorder or condition may be exposed to slightly more than minimal risk in nontherapeutic research if the child’s experience is similar to everyday life with that condition and the anticipated knowledge is of vital importance for understanding that condition.

Much of the concern over nontherapeutic research stems from wide variability in the interpretation of minimal risk. The federal regulations define minimal risks as the risks that are “ordinarily encountered in daily life or during the performance of routine physical or psychologic examinations or tests.” When originally proposed, the definition of minimal risk referred to the life of a healthy child. The regulations omitted this phrase out of concern that research would be hindered, thus contributing to the wide range of interpretation. Moreover, risks encountered in daily life may be formidable for some children, and the regulations should not be construed as permitting more risk exposure to children who are disadvantaged. Some advocate eliminating the “slightly more than minimal risk” category mentioned earlier, and allowing a more permissive understanding of minimal risk. This would avoid a double standard that currently allows riskier research to be performed on children with a disorder or condition, but might slow the pace of progress if not balanced with a change in the definition of minimal risk.

Some studies that hold the prospect of direct benefit to the child may include interventions or procedures that are not clinically diagnostic or therapeutic. These nontherapeutic components of research, such as an extra blood test or chest radiograph, should be of minimal risk and cannot be justified by the anticipated benefit of other parts of the overall research study. The risks of interventions that offer direct benefit can, however, be more than minimal. In such cases the risks must be justified by the anticipated benefit to the child, and the balance of anticipated benefit to the risk should be at least as favorable as that presented by available alternatives. The welfare of an individual child must always come before the scientific goals of the research study.

The regulations in the USA for the protection of human research subjects rest on 2 foundations: (1) independent review of the ethics and science of the research by an IRB prior to (2) voluntary and informed consent of the subject/participant. Although it is not amenable to regulation, the integrity of the investigator is probably the most important element contributing to the protection of human research subjects. The standard for informed consent in a research setting is higher than for clinical care because the risks and benefits are typically less clear, the investigator has a conflict of interest, and humans have historically been subjected to unauthorized risks when strict requirements for consent were not respected.

Adolescents who are competent may sometimes consent to be research subjects. Younger children may participate in a process of assent, but this does not imply that a child’s signature on an assent document is necessarily a legal or ethical requirement. Children should be given the opportunity to dissent, particularly for nontherapeutic research, when there cannot be a claim that participation is in the child’s interest. In the USA, national regulations require that reasonable efforts be made at least to inform children who are capable of understanding that participation is not part of their care and that, therefore, they are free to refuse to participate. In the rare case that the research offers a direct benefit to the child that would not otherwise be available, the regulations do not require child assent but only parental permission.

In addition to the protection that informed consent is intended to provide, virtually all research involving human subjects in the USA is reviewed by an IRB, required by federal regulations for institutions receiving federal research funds and for drug research regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. For research that carries more than a minor increase over minimal risk without prospect of benefit to the child such that a local IRB cannot provide approval, there is a process for federal review of research that “presents a reasonable opportunity to further the understanding, prevention, or alleviation of a serious problem affecting the health or welfare of children.” Ultimately, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has the authority to approve such research.

Individuals who are capable of voluntary and informed consent should generally be approached about research participation prior to those who are not capable. Because of this, younger children should not be included in research unless scientifically necessary. An unfortunate result of this is that the majority of marketed medications are not labeled for use in children. Pediatricians are left with a difficult choice of using medications “off-label” and risking increased toxicity or decreased efficacy, or not using a medication and potentially denying a child an important therapeutic benefit. To ameliorate this problem, the USA has granted 6 mo patent extensions for the performance of requested pediatric studies, resulting in new pediatric labeling for many important drugs. New drug applications must include studies of children unless granted a specific waiver. In addition, grants submitted to the National Institutes of Health must include children in the absence of scientific or ethical reasons to the contrary. These developments reflect the ongoing ethical tension between protecting children from research risk and relegating children to the role of “therapeutic orphan.”

Balancing Maternal And Fetal Interests

Some situations require balancing of maternal health and well-being with those of the fetus to reach an ethically sound decision. For instance, innovative surgical treatment of a prenatally diagnosed anomaly may help the fetus survive, but in the process place the mother at slight risk of injury or of loss of the pregnancy. Alternatively, a pregnant woman may object to delivery by caesarian section for various reasons in spite of advice that it may protect the fetus during birth. A third important situation involves risk-taking behaviors during pregnancy that are known to injure the developing fetus, such as drug or alcohol use. These issues raise conflicts over clinicians’ responsibility to the living, competent decision-maker—the pregnant mother—as opposed to the interests of the unborn child.

In certain cases, courts in the USA have decided that a woman can be required to undergo caesarian section against her will as standard of care when the risk to her health is minimal and the benefit to the otherwise normal, near-term unborn child is clear, for example, in a case of placenta previa. Other factors, such as, prematurity, have led to the opposite legal conclusion in otherwise similar situations because the benefit of intervention was less clear. In general, a clinician should not oppose a pregnant woman’s refusal of a recommended intervention unless (1) the risk to the pregnant woman is minimal, (2) the intervention is clearly effective, and (3) the harm to the fetus without the intervention would be certain, substantial, and irrevocable. Attempts should be made to persuade the pregnant woman to comply with recommendations in the interest of the fetus when these 3 conditions exist, using support strategies such as the influence of other trusted caregivers, clergy, and/or ethics consultation/committee involvement. If these approaches fail and there is time, a clinician may seek judicial intervention as a last resort in the attempt to prevent harm to the unborn child.

Obstetricians and pediatricians may consider reporting women under child abuse or neglect statutes if ingesting alcohol or illicit drugs during pregnancy is felt to place the fetus at risk of injury. However, clinicians must consider the likelihood of benefit from reporting, the harm to the child as well as to the mother if criminal charges or custody changes are sought, and the possible effects that reporting may have on driving pregnant women away from prenatal or postnatal care. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that drug testing of pregnant women without consent was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which provides protection from unreasonable searches.

Justice And Pediatric Ethics

The most serious ethical problem in health care in the USA may be inequality in access to health care. Children are particularly vulnerable to this disparity, and pediatricians have a moral obligation to advocate for children as a class. Because children do not vote and do not have financial resources at their disposal, they are subject to a greater risk of being uninsured or underinsured. This lack of adequate and affordable health care has serious consequences in terms of death, disability, and suffering. The Affordable Care Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by the President in March 2010, may help to ameliorate these problems in the USA. The per capita proportion of health care funding spent on adults greatly exceeds that spent on children, and Medicare is available to all adults who turn 65 yr old while Medicaid is limited to those beneath a specific income level. Federal dollars intended to support health care for children are generally administered and supplemented with state funds, which can create additional barriers. Pediatricians should be familiar with policy issues around the economics of child health care so that they will be better able to advocate for their own patients.

Emerging Issues

Several newer issues in pediatric ethics are important to note. The ready availability of information on the Internet has encouraged parents to become more involved in advocating for specific approaches to the health care of their children, requiring physicians to remain aware of the quality of these sources of information in order to adequately counsel parents on treatment choices. Because the range of aggressive, innovative, or exceedingly expensive therapies has increased, without necessarily providing clear benefit to the patient, pediatricians must exercise care and judgment before agreeing to pursue these interventions. A growing number of parents are refusing to immunize their children because of fear of adverse reaction to vaccine. This raises the ethical problem of the “free rider,” in which a child may benefit from herd immunity because others have been immunized without contributing to this public good. Outbreaks of preventable infectious disease have been detected in communities where vaccine refusal is prevalent. Pediatricians should manage this issue with ethical sensitivity, educating parents about the safety profile of vaccines and encouraging appropriate immunization. More confrontational approaches are not generally effective or ethically warranted. A second emerging issue relates to children as stem cell or solid organ donors. Here the risk : benefit balance should be carefully weighed, but in general a permissive policy with regard to stem cell donation and a more restrictive approach to solid organ donation are ethically justified. Finally, controversial medical and surgical interventions to induce growth attenuation of children with severe cognitive impairment have been proposed in hopes of prolonging ability to care for them in the home setting. Attitudes about this may be influenced by media coverage, special interest groups, and desperate efforts by stressed families to help their children. The clinician attempting to practice ethically must carefully consider all relevant facts and legal issues in each case, and try to focus families and caregivers on a reasonable best interest assessment for the child. The tension between finding optimal policy for all disabled children and doing the right thing for an individual child raises formidable ethical challenges in this context.

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