Webinar: Ethical Principles for Decision-Making in Paediatrics Palliative Care

The Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network will be hosting a webinar on ‘Ethical Principles for Decision-Making in Paediatrics Palliative Care’ on 21 October 2025 (Tues), 1-2 pm (Singapore Time). We are honoured to have Prof Lynn Gillam AM from the Children’s Bioethics Centre, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia as our speaker for this session!

Synopsis

The capacity of medicine to prolong the lives of children with terminal and life-limiting conditions is ever-increasing. As the options for  medical intervention grow, the ethical question for palliative care remains the same, but grows in importance – is it always right to use the life-prolonging interventions that are available? This is an ethical question about each individual child in their own circumstances, and not simply about specific interventions, such as ventilation. In this webinar, I will describe some key ethical values that are generally regarded as relevant to such ethical decisions, highlight some of the potential tensions between values, and introduce some tools for ethical decision-making. There will be plenty of time for discussion, in particular about how relevant these values and tools are in different cultural settings.

Speaker Bio

Lynn Gillam is an experienced clinical ethicist, originally trained in philosophy (MA (Oxon) as a Rhodes Scholar) and bioethics (PhD, Monash University).  Lynn is the Academic Director of the Children’s Bioethics Centre at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne. She is also Professor in Health Ethics at the University of Melbourne, in the Department of Paediatrics.

Lynn provides clinical ethics case consultation, policy advice and leads research in paediatric clinical ethics.  In 2018, she was awarded the RCH Chairman’s Medal, in recognition of this work. Lynn is involved in research across a wide range of topics in paediatric clinical ethics, including end-of-life decision-making, the role of parents and children in decision-making, truth-telling to children, appearance-altering surgeries in children, and fertility preservation for children. She also has interests in the process of ethics consultation, the ethics of end of life decision-making more generally, moral distress and conscientious objection.

Lynn teaches ethics in the MD course, and other health professional degree courses at the University of Melbourne, and supervises research students at Honours, Masters and PhD levels.  In 2019, Lynn was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to medical education in the field of bioethics.

The webinar will be hosted via Zoom. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/zVDB_JAPTu2Ngy-dMiC1Rw