Making Difficult Medical Decisions

If you need to make hard decisions about your child’s care, ethics consultants can help. These specially trained professionals respect your personal and spiritual values, and can help you make difficult medical choices.

Working with an ethics consultant can help you...

• Talk through options
• Clarify goals for your child’s care
• Know that your child’s caregivers understand what you want

Talk to an ethics consultant when you...

• Are unclear about what to do next for your child
• Have doubts about the best healthcare decision
• Examples may include when you:

• Disagree with doctors about the best treatment
• Struggle with a treatment that might save your child’s life but also causes pain and suffering
• Don’t know if you should decide to stop a treatment
• Question how much to share with your child or family members
• Are unsure if organ donation conflicts with your beliefs
• Need help with end-of-life issues

If you want an ethics consultation, you can...

• Talk it over with any member of your healthcare team
• Ask to speak to an ethics consultant

Learn more about scheduling an ethics consult at Lurie Children's.