Special Issue: Value Pluralism in Pediatrics

Les Ateliers de l’éthique/The Ethics Forum – Call for Papers

Guest Editors for this special issue: Nathalie Orr Gaucher (Université de Montréal) and Bertrand Lavoie (Université de Sherbrooke)

Revised deadline for submission: 1 April 2024

Les Ateliers de l’éthique/The Ethics Forum invites scientific papers on the theme of value pluralism in pediatrics. Supprimé ! The pediatric hospital is a place where complex ethical issues develop, where the values of patients, families and caregivers are mobilized, shared and sometimes come into tension. Reflecting contemporary societies, pediatric hospitals are faced with a growing pluralism of values that is rich and guarantees diversity, but which can pose challenges. These include requests to refuse or extend treatment, the limits to be set on the personalization of care, and the way in which the interests of the child are interpreted in the face of diversifying family paths.

Among several care models, the care partnership between clinicians, patients and families is emerging as a relational approach to better anticipate and understand these pressing issues of value pluralism in a coherent and collaborative manner. Recent developments in patient-partnership have highlighted the importance of democratic representation and equity issues for health care teams. The tripartite nature of the pediatric health care relationship regularly questions the respective roles of the different parties and makes advocacy more complex. In this context, the normative and legal framework can have an important influence on the caregiving relationship. The way in which families and healthcare teams understand the rights related to the physical dimension of the sick child (right to life, integrity or dignity) or to the rights related to the social dimension of the child (right to equality or freedom of religion) can be a determining factor in resolving or fuelling differences in values. Thus, the search for innovative strategies to resolve these disputes is crucial in order to guarantee the humanization of care.

This thematic dossier aims to explore, through clinical case studies and/or theoretical and critical reflections, these clinical, ethical and legal issues of value pluralism in pediatrics, through, among others, the following questions:

• • What is the scope of the care partnership in pediatrics? What are the social, relational, organizational and institutional obstacles and levers to ensure the development of patient-family-caregiver partnerships in the pediatric hospital today? How to teach the partnership-based care relationship?

• • What are the respective roles expected in the pediatric health care relationship? What place is there for the parents’ values? What place for interdisciplinarity? Should caregivers present themselves as patient advocates in the public sphere?

• • How to interpret the interest of the child in complex ethical situations? How to understand the influences of medical techno-scientific advances on the extension of the child’s life and the tension between human values and these technologies? How to understand and adequately protect the fundamental rights of children in the pediatric hospital environment?

• • What place is given to the sick child in the caregiving relationship? How can we harmonize the sometimes-distinct values of the child, his parents and those of the health care team?

• • What strategies/initiatives/achievements can be highlighted that point to concrete ways of resolving value conflicts or disputes in the pediatric clinical space?

The scope of this issue is intended to be multidisciplinary. We therefore invite submissions from authors from a variety of disciplines, particularly those whose work is related to the interdisciplinary intersection of ethics, law, social sciences and medicine.

Article Format Supprimé ! Submissions may be in English or French, and should be approximately 6,000 to 12,000 words. The text must be anonymized and made suitable for blind review. Detailed submission guidelines can be found at: https://www.lecre.umontreal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/consignes-aux-auteurs-2014_mise-en-page-1.pdf

Manuscripts should be sent by 1 April 2024 to the following address: france.lacharite@usherbrooke.ca