This paper addresses an important issue, which (to my knowledge) has received little if any attention previously: 'how to identify and weigh up the harms and benefits of endorsing or going against proposed treatments for a child, and how to discuss social media and online sources of information with parents'. Unfortunately the paper is restricted-access so most of us cannot read it.
REVIEW
Responding to the ‘crowd’ of voices and opinions in the paediatric clinical space: an ethics perspective
Clare Delany et al.
c.delany@unimelb.edu.au
ABSTRACT
Ready access to the internet and online sources of information about child health and disease has allowed people more ‘distant’ from a child, family and paediatric clinician to inform and influence clinical decisions. It has also allowed parents to share aspects of their child’s health and illness to garner support or funding for treatment. As a consequence, paediatric clinicians must consider and incorporate the crowd of opinions and voices into their clinical and ethical reasoning.
We identify two key ethical principles and related ethics concepts foundational to this task. We then propose a series of exploratory ethics questions to assist paediatric clinicians to engage ethically with the multiple voices in the clinical encounter while keeping the child’s needs as a central focus. Using two clinical hypothetical case examples, we illustrate how our proposed ethics questions can assist paediatric clinicians to navigate the crowd in the room and bring moral reasoning to bear.
We highlight a need for specific practical interactional skills training to assist clinicians to ethically respond to the crowd in the room, including to identify and weigh up the harms and benefits of endorsing or going against proposed treatments for a child, and how to discuss social media and online sources of information with parents.
https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2023-326154
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org