Skip to content

Peer-reviewed article

Access to Transplantation for Undocumented Pediatric Patients

Clinicians in the United States today regularly face dilemmas about health disparities. Many patients and families cannot afford the medical care that doctors recommend. These problems are most stark when the medical care that is needed is…

By John D. LantosJanuary 1, 20201 min readin PEDIATRICS

Clinicians in the United States today regularly face dilemmas about health disparities. Many patients and families cannot afford the medical care that doctors recommend. These problems are most stark when the medical care that is needed is lifesaving and expensive and involves scarce resources. Transplants are the best example of this. The most ethically disturbing situations occur when an undocumented immigrant child needs a transplant. We present such a case and analyze the ethical, legal, and policy issues that arise.

Originally published at PEDIATRICS · January 1, 2020.

About the author

John D. Lantos is a pediatrician and bioethicist writing on AI in medicine, neonatal intensive care, and end-of-life decisions. His essays appear in JAMA, JAMA Pediatrics, the Hastings Center Report, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Aeon. Read more about John.

The full archiveSubscribe