Ethics Debate: When a Child’s Heart is Failing

Filmed at the 2017 Annual STS Meeting in Houston, Texas, Dr Robert Sade of the Medical University of South Carolina moderates a debate on the appropriate course of care in the fictional case of a child who cannot be weaned from bypass following mitral valve surgery. Dr Minoo Kavarana of the Medical University of South Carolina and Dr Jessica Turnbull of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee present the cases for and against placing the child on the transplant waiting list, respectively.

Dr Sade chairs the Cardiothoracic Ethics Forum, which organized and presented this debate at the 2017 STS Meeting. The transcript from the oral debate was published in the October 2017 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.