The Adolescent Alone: Decision Making in Health Care in the United States

by Edited by Jeffrey Blustein , Carol Levine , Nancy Dubler , Foreword by Angela R. Holder

• ISBN13: 9780521652407
• ISBN10: 0521652405
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-06-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

A growing number of adolescents do not have a supportive and trusting relationship with an adult in a birth, foster, adoptive, or chosen family. Yet like all adolescents they need routine and sometimes specialized health care. This book is a collection of essays, case studies, and guidelines that describe the demographic, philosophical, medical, legal, and developmental framework in which these youth and health care staff confront medical decision making. The authors address questions of consent, confidentiality, access to care, and the right to refuse or demand care, emphasizing the real-world experience of adolescents as they struggle to overcome the challenges of being alone.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	ix	(2)
Foreword	xi
Introduction The Adolescent Alone: "You Got Nobody in Your Corner"	1	(22)
Carol Levine
Jeffrey Blustein
Nancy Dubler
Part I Background Essays	23	(160)
1 The Adolescent Alone: Who and How?	23	(8)
Audrey Smith Rogers
Susan Newcomer
2 Adolescent Development: Implications for the Adolescents Alone	31	(19)
Nancy Leffert
Anne C. Petersen
3 The Health of American Adolescents: Current Issues and Service Gaps	50	(28)
Neal D. Hoffman
4 Health Care for the Adolescent Alone: A Legal Landscape	78	(22)
Abigail English
5 Valid Consent to Treatment and the Unsupervised Adolescent	100	(11)
Jeffrey Blustein
Jonathan D. Moreno
6 The Impact of Growing Up Orphaned on Decision-Making Capacity	111	(10)
Francine Cournos
7 Experiences of Coming Out Among Gay and Lesbian Youth: Adolescents Alone?	121	(18)
Andrew M. Boxer
Judith A. Cook
Gilbert Herdt
8 Lives in the Balance: A Profile of Homeless Youth in New York City	139	(21)
Michael C. Clatts
Deborah J. Hillman
Aylin Atillasoy
W. Rees Davis
9 Adolescents and Medical Decision Making: Observations of a Medical Anthropologist	160	(23)
Betty Wolder Levin
Part II Cases and Commentaries	183	(68)
Case One: Consent and the Limits of Staff as "Family"	183	(8)
Abigail English
Case Two: Placing an Unplaceable Teen	191	(8)
Cathy Cramer
Linda Freeman
Audrey Smith Rogers
Case Three: An Adolescent's Contested Wish for a Kidney Transplant	199	(6)
Jeffrey Blustein
Susan Coupey
Case Four: Saying "No" to Treatment in Terminal Illness	205	(7)
Jonathan Moreno
Kenneth Schonberg
Case Five: Consent and an Informal Guardian	212	(8)
Donna Futterman
Peter Millock
Case Six: Does "Nonjudgmental" Care Include Prescribing Hormones?	220	(9)
Andrew Boxer
Michael Clatts
Case Seven: An Adolescent's Decisions about Reproduction and HIV Transmission	229	(10)
Francine Cournos
Nancy Dubler
Case Eight: Family and Culture in HIV Care for a Latino Adolescent	239	(4)
Luis H. Zayas
Case Nine: Consent by Antisocial Adolescents: Defining the "Least Bad" Option	243	(8)
Michael Pawel
Part III Ethics Guidelines for Health Care Providers	251	(20)
Ethics Guidelines for Health Care Providers	251	(20)
Jeffrey Blustein
Nancy Dubler
Carol Levine
Index	271