Parents have legal authority over their children, especially on issues that entail complications in their healthcare and on cases of biomedical research and treatment specifications of cases such as terminal cancer. The fact that the child is seven years old, the law excludes him from making a decision on issues about his or her health complications. However, the exclusion of a kid from his or her physical and mental health conditions on the basis of protections raises both the legal and ethical concerns (Katz, Webb & Committee on Bioethics, 2016). Ideally, the legal challenge that entails the vulnerability of not seeking the consent of a kid and ethical concern of excluding the child from knowing his or her health status defines the sense of professionalism, law, and ethics in understanding the concept of human health and sciences. Consequently, the case of the seven-year-old patient intersects the law, ethics, and professionalism based on the ideology of offering protection to the legal rights of patients and the maintenance of ethical practice in the healthcare profession (Khabour, Alomari & Al-sheyab, 2017). Hence, it is unethical and unprofessional as a healthcare professional to disclose the diagnostic results of terminal cancer to a seven-year-old kid.
As a healthcare professional, the basis upon which I would apply the subject matter, for the case of a seven-year-old kid, is to seek the consent of the parents since they are legally mandated to make a decision that may adversely affect or improve the health condition of their kid. Although seeking the consent of a patient irrespective of age dwells on the ancient legal and philosophical standpoints, it is quite unprofessional to disclose a terminal health issue to a child (Moore, McArthur & Noble-Carr, 2018). Given the perspective of law and ethics, the child deserves to know his or her health condition based on the legal right to autonomy and self-determination, but under the authority of the parents. Hence, I would consider shifting the ethical and legal paradigm to the parents for reasons of effective decision making from a physician approach to a more patient centered approach.
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References
Katz, A. L., Webb, S. A., & Committee on Bioethics. (2016). Informed consent in decision-making in pediatric practice. Pediatrics , 138 (2), e20161485.
Khabour, O. F., Alomari, M. A., & Al-sheyab, N. A. (2017). Parental perceptions about informed consent/assent in pediatric research in Jordan. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics , 12 (4), 261-268.
Moore, T. P., McArthur, M., & Noble-Carr, D. (2018). More a marathon than a hurdle: towards children’s informed consent in a study on safety. Qualitative Research , 18 (1), 88-107.
