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Seeking Justice for Priscilla

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

John Lantos
John Lantos
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago.
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Extract

I am currently caring for a child named Priscilla who is ventilator-dependent and whose care confronted me with questions of justice. Priscilla was born at the County Hospital after a normal pregnancy to a 17-year-old single mother. At birth, she was noted to have some dysmorphic features: widely spaced eyes, low-set ears, and a cleft palate. Her chest X-ray showed hypoplastic ribs and scapulae. Her chromosome studies were normal. Eventually, a diagnosis of a rare dwarfing syndrome campomelic dysplasia – was made.

Type
Special Section: Can Justice Endure Healthcare Reform?: From Patient Care to Policy (and Back Again)
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , Fall 1996 , pp. 485 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

Notes

1. Burr, BH, Guyer, B, Todres, ID et al. , Home care for children on respirators. New England Journal of Medicine 1983; 309:1319–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

2. Frates, RC, Splaingard, ML, Smith, EO, Harrison, GM. Outcome of home mechanical ventilation in children. Journal of Pediatrics 1985; 106:850–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

3. Jones, KL. Smith's Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation, Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1988, pp. 296–7.Google Scholar

4. Garbarino, J, Dubrow, N, Kostelny, K, Pardo, C. Children in Danger: Coping with the Consequences of Community Violence. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992.Google Scholar

5. Powers, R. Operation Wandering Soul. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.Google Scholar