Module 3: Analyzing Ethical Challenges in Pediatric
End-of-life Decision Making

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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