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Commentary: Calibrating the Moral Compass

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2010

Ian R. Holzman
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Extract

There is nothing more humbling to one’s inner moral compass than to realize that you do not initially know what is right or wrong! I found myself in just such a situation after reading the above case. Much has been written, both in the professional literature and the popular media, about the “Ashley Treatment” since Gunther and Diekema published their article in 2006. It is unclear if others in the United States or around the world have, to any significant degree, adopted growth attenuation therapy and/or surgical intervention for children with severe neurological compromise, but the case quoted above suggests that hospital ethics committees may also be struggling with these decisions. An informal survey of pediatric endocrinologists, mentioned in a recent article on the topic, claims that many physicians are facing this dilemma as well.

Type
Ethics Committees at Work
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 411 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1. Gunther, DF, Diekema, DS. Attenuating growth in children with profound developmental disability: A new approach to an old dilemma. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 2006;160:1013–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Allen, DB, Kappy, M, Diekema, D, Fost, N. Growth-attenuation therapy: Principles for practice. Pediatrics 2009;123:1556–61CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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