Making Medical Decisions

Catalog description

Do parents always know what’s best for their kids? Should a child be allowed to refuse lifesaving treatment? Is it moral to include minors in research, or maybe morally necessary? When can a teen’s right to change gender outweigh parental permission? In this course, we study the doctor-patient relationship where the patient is a child – a child with family, a child with legal rights, and a child with a developing brain. We review the principles of medical ethics and the concept of informed consent, and focus on the child’s own development in her capacities to reason and make medical decisions in these contexts. We then join current debates on sexual health, psychiatric treatment, end-of-life care and research, and we raise new question about how doctor’s, kids, and families decide.