A bioethics education program in pediatric rheumatology.

The medical care of children by pediatric rheumatologists may be ethically very complex. Medical trainees and members of the multidisciplinary health care team must be sensitive to and knowledgeable about ethical issues relevant to the care of their patients, and capable of ethical reasoning. Members of the Bioethics Department and the Division of Rheumatology at the Hospital for Sick Children have cooperatively developed a Bioethics Education Program with a curriculum tailored to meet the needs of the health care team. The quarterly ethics seminars are case based and interdisciplinary. Topics addressed include the nature of the patient-practitioner relationship, research with child participants, the developing autonomy of the child, the child's "best interests," and consent