Associate Chief, Advanced Practice Providers Seattle Children's Hospital Seattle, Washington
Disclosure(s):
Aimee Jennings, CPNP, FCCM: No relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose.
Thanks to significant medical and surgical advancements and innovations during the past century, most children with critical heart disease can hope to live a long and healthy life. But despite these advancements, some children do not respond to conventional therapies and are at high risk of death. Under these dire circumstances, some families and medical teams search for alternative therapies that might help save the child’s life, and sometimes unconventional cardiac surgical or catheter-based interventions are considered. These interventions are often unproven, with unclear risks and benefits. The use of unconventional heroic therapies can in some cases be lifesaving and in other cases only place additional burdens on the child without a positive outcome.
Learning Objectives:
Describe a framework for ethical decision-making when considering high-risk interventions for dying children in the pediatric cardiac ICU
Identify tools and techniques for implementing a program to develop a self-sustaining culture of moral support and resilience in the pediatric cardiac ICU
Explain how an innovative organizational ethics team can collaborate with pediatric cardiac programs to develop policies and procedures to proactively reduce ethical conflicts in the pediatric cardiac ICU
