Failure to Provide Adequate Palliative Care May Be Medical Neglect.
Publication/Presentation Date
10-1-2019
Abstract
Doctors are required to notify Child Protective Services (CPS) if parents do not provide appropriate medical care for their children. But criteria for reporting medical neglect are vague. Which treatments properly fall within the realm of shared decision-making in which parents can decide whether to accept doctors' recommendations? Which treatments are so clearly in the child's interest that it would be neglectful to refuse them? When to report medical neglect concerns to CPS may be controversial. It would seem inhumane to allow a child to suffer because of parental refusal to administer proper analgesia. In this ethics rounds, we present a case of an adolescent with chronic pain who is terminally ill. Her parents were not adherent to recommended analgesia regimens. Her palliative care team had to decide whether to report the case to CPS.
Volume
144
Issue
4
ISSN
1098-4275
Published In/Presented At
Levy, C., Weeks, K. S., Benson, R. J., Miller, J. M., Higgins, J., Deutsch, S. A., & Lantos, J. D. (2019). Failure to Provide Adequate Palliative Care May Be Medical Neglect. Pediatrics, 144(4), e20183939. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2018-3939
Disciplines
Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Health and Medical Administration | Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods
PubMedID
31484675
Department(s)
Administration and Leadership
Document Type
Article