Deciding with Children in Pediatric Healthcare

Deciding with Children in Pediatrics: Children’s Participation in Healthcare Decision-making provides the ethical underpinning and offers practical strategies to foster meaningful participation of children in decisions affecting their healthcare. It will assist clinicians to bring forward the perspectives and values of the child, ensuring their preferences are incorporated into decision-making or appropriately justified when this is not possible. This is to both improve healthcare delivery and serve the best interests of children- now and as decision-makers in the future. This book reviews theories underpinning the concept of deciding with children and explores how pediatric decision-making is standardly managed. It then proposes a model for making healthcare decisions with children. A panel of experienced clinicians and ethicists demonstrate, via a series of case studies, how to promote children’s participation across a variety of clinical areas, child ages, and developmental stages. It concludes with a review of questions, concerns, and challenges. Deciding with Children in Pediatrics: Children’s Participation in Healthcare Decision-making helps bridge the gap between philosophy and practical clinical ethics and creates a frame of reference for children’s healthcare providers.