Death or Disability?: The 'Carmentis Machine' And Decision-Making For Critically Ill Children - Softcover

Wilkinson, Dominic

 
9780198799054: Death or Disability?: The 'Carmentis Machine' And Decision-Making For Critically Ill Children
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0198799055 ISBN 13: 9780198799054
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2017

Synopsis

In ancient Rome parents would consult the priestess Carmentis shortly after birth to obtain prophecies of the future of their newborn infant. Today, parents and doctors of critically ill children consult a different oracle. Neuroimaging provides a vision of the child's future, particularly of the nature and severity of any disability. Based on the results of brain scans and other tests doctors and parents face heart-breaking decisions about whether or not to continue intensive treatment or to allow the child to die.

Paediatrician and ethicist Dominic Wilkinson looks at the profound and contentious ethical issues facing those who work in intensive care caring for critically ill children and infants. When should infants or children be allowed to die? How accurate are predictions of future quality of life? How much say should parents have in these decisions? How should they deal with uncertainty about the future? He combines philosophy, medicine and science to shed light on current and future dilemmas.

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About the Author

Dominic Wilkinson is Professor of Medical Ethics at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, research fellow at Jesus College, and a consultant neonatologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication date
2017
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0198799055
ISBN 13 
9780198799054
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
320