October 13, 1997
University of Illinois at Chicago
Contact: Danny Chun, (312) 996-2269, [email protected]
UIC EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN TO PRESENT COURSE AT AMERICAN COLLEGE OF EMERGENCY PHYSICIANS CONVENTION ON HOW TO TELL PARENTS THEIR CHILD HAS DIED
A course to help emergency physicians tell parents that their child has died will be presented by Dr. William Ahrens, assistant professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Medical Center, and members of the Illinois SIDS Alliance at the annual Scientific Assembly of the American College of Emergency Physicians in San Francisco Oct. 17.
"Managing a Pediatric Death in the Emergency Department by Learning from the Parents" (course # FR-61) will be presented Friday, Oct. 17, from 8:00 to 9:55 a.m. at the Moscone Convention Center, 747 Howard Street.
For the past two years, Dr. Ahrens has been working with the Illinois SIDS Alliance to develop a course designed to help emergency physicians tell parents that their child has died. One of the key teaching points is reassurance from the physician that the parents are blameless.
"It is devastating to families for any member of the medical staff to imply that they are in any way responsible for the baby's death," says Ahrens. "This happens all too frequently, causing years of unnecessary pain.
"It is important that the medical staff of emergency departments approach each unexplained infant death as an unavoidable tragedy until evidence proves the contrary. Our primary role is to provide comfort to the survivors of a dead infant and to facilitate the long process of healing. To imply guilt where none exist needlessly compounds the tragedy."
Ahrens is concerned that the recent repudiation by the editor of the medical journal Pediatrics of a landmark study on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome may be misinterpreted by the public and physicians. [Dr. Jerold Lucey of Pediatrics writes in the October issue that a study suggesting SIDS runs in families should not have been published in the journal 25 years ago.]
Ahrens says while it is reasonable for physicians and coroners to be concerned about child abuse in families where there are multiple deaths of children, it is important to recognize that SIDS is a real medical entity for which parents are guiltless.
"Parents who lose a baby to SIDS spend a lifetime coping with the event," says Ahrens. "One of the most crucial aspects of their recovery is the realization that they are not at fault."
-UIC-
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