In this clip filmed at the 2025 Reclaiming Conference in Calgary, Canada, pediatrician and IMA Senior Fellow Dr. Renata Moon speaks on the essential role of medical freedom, informed consent, and parental engagement in healthcare. She reminds us that honest medicine means partnership—not compliance—and that families thrive when parents stay informed and involved in every decision.
Dr. Renata Moon:
Hi, I’m Dr. Renata Moon. I’m a practicing pediatrician and a senior fellow with the IMA.
The loss of freedom that we have seen over the last, you know, five years has been global and really alarming. And medicine is just one part of it, but it is such an important part because your medical freedom matters. It matters that you can make choices for your own family. It matters that you can make medical decisions for your own body. So informed consent, bodily autonomy, do you know harm? All of these, all of these very ethical and moral foundations are important to a healthy society. And so absolutely, we need to focus on medical freedom. Honest medicine means that I take care of the patient in front of me with 100% of my efforts. We learn from each other. I learn what their views are and what their wishes are. And we figure out the best path forward for their individual health care. In my case, I’m a pediatrician. So I’m talking to parents about the best plan forward for their children.
And we’re doing that together as a team without any outside influence, with open and honest discussions. It used to be that parents were pretty meek. They would just say, well, tell me what to do and I’ll do it. And now I’m very happy to see that parents are speaking out. You know, there’s certain questions that if I ask them, just to find out what’s going on with their family and with their life, they’ll put their hand out as they answer sort of like a, no, we’re not, you know, and then I say, that’s okay. That’s great that you’ve made that decision for your family. But they’re very much asking questions and they’re very clear that they’ve lost trust in the health care system as it currently stands.
