ACTIVITY 1: LECTURE
An Ethical and Legal Framework for Caring for Children with Life-Threatening Conditions
This seminar focuses on identifying the values and behaviors relevant to establishing strong and supportive relationships with children and families. [learn more ...]

ACTIVITY 2: SEMINAR
Assessing Benefits and Burdens of Life-Sustaining Treatments
The purpose of this introductory seminar is to provide health care professionals with a conceptual framework for approaching difficult decisions about the use of life-sustaining treatments for neonates, children and adolescents. [learn more ...]

ACTIVITY 3: SEMINAR
Honoring Parental Values When Benefits Are Marginal or Uncertain
This case-based seminar demonstrates how caring individuals may make very different and equally ethical decisions on behalf of gravely ill children with identical diagnoses and prognoses. [learn more ... ]

ACTIVITY 4: LECTURE
Using and Forgoing Medically Provided Nutrition and Hydration
The purpose of this seminar is to explore the special issues that surround the withholding or withdrawal of medically provided nutrition and hydration in children with life-threatening illness or injury, and to establish the ethical permissibility of such decisions under certain circumstances. [learn more ...]

ACTIVITY 5: LECTURE
Special Considerations of Adolescents: Truth Telling
The purpose of this activity is to introduce ways of approaching the challenge of telling adolescents the truth about their diagnoses and prognoses. [learn more ...]

ACTIVITY 6: LECTURE
Special Considerations of Adolescents: Decision Making
This seminar moves from the discussion of truth telling explored in Activity 3.5 to an exploration of the authority adolescents should be granted with regard to making decisions, particularly decisions regarding the use or termination of life supports. [learn more ...]

ACTIVITY 7: LECTURE
Ethical Issues in the Treatment of Pain and Suffering at the End of Life
This seminar addresses three challenging issues that arise in making treatment decisions at the end of a child's life, using case examples. [learn more ...]