title: Hope is a virtue.
abstract: Understanding the meaning and importance of what constitutes hope when counseling members of a family and their child in a medical setting is a vital skill for physicians. The hope that the physicians must foster is that they will offer comfort and care, honesty and availability, and genuine expertise. Although there is no obligation to sustain harmful treatments to maintain false hopes, there is also no obligation to extinguish hope in parents and patients for the outcome of a disorder.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Pediatrics and Neurology, Yale University School of Medicine and Yale Bioethics Center, New Haven, CT 06520, USA. geoffrey.miller@yale.edu
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D028722:Virtues