OBJECTIVES: To reflect on the nature of ethics, from a contemporary perspective, and also on which features of the family relationship have an impact on the interface between genetics and pediatrics. SOURCES: The data used are the fruit of the authors' own intellectual production plus other bibliographic references. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS: Genetics has presented ethics with new challenges. Particularly in pediatrics, where caring for patients is almost indivisible from a continuous relationship with their families, these issues are amplified even further, generating new questions that health professionals have not previously had to face. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the reflections outlined here, emphasis can be placed on the importance of actively recognizing the Other in its multiple dimensions and on the repercussions that this perspective has for the physician-patient-family relationship.
Ethics; genetics; family