Navigating uncertainty  7-9 September 2016

Uncertainty makes things ethically complicated. Caring for children and adolescents with serious medical conditions involves all sorts of uncertainties - about the long terms outcomes for children in intensive care, about effectiveness of new drugs, about getting a transplant in time, about the level of physical or psychological distress of child who is unable to communicate. All of these make it harder to come to an ethical decision about what is in the best interests of a child. Uncertainty about an adolescent’s level of understanding or maturity make it difficult to decide what to do when the adolescent refuses treatment. And where there is uncertainty, there are also different views, and potential for disagreement and conflict. This conference provides the opportunity to explore ethical decision-making in a range of high-stakes contexts where uncertainty is a complicating factor.

Program

View the 2016 program here

International Keynote speaker

Professor Benjamin S. Wilfond MD - Wednesday 7 September 12:30-1:30pm (Grand Rounds)

Director, Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics, Seattle Children’s Research Institute; Professor and Chief of the Division of Bioethics, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine and adjunct professor in the UW Department of Bioethics and Humanities. Dr Wilfond is also Chief of the Bioethics Consultation Service and an attending physician in the Division of Pulmonary Medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He also coordinates the Research Bioethics Consult Service for the Institute of Translational Health Sciences. 

Technological interventions in children with profound disabilities: Navigating family and professional values

National Keynote speaker: Dr Melanie Jansen, B. Med, MA (Phil) - Friday 9 September 

Advanced Trainee in Paediatric Intensive Care Medicine and General Paediatrics and an ICU Registrar at the Gold Coast University Hospital. She is also a Clinical Ethics Fellow and Steering Group Member, Centre for Children's Health Ethics and Law (CCHEL), and Lady Cilento Children's Hospital, Brisbane. 

Inevitability and honesty: The case for bedside rationing