What is the effect of negligent medical treatment on the parents of an ill child?

As noted ante, in contrast to diagnosis, treatment of an ill child is undertaken for the direct benefit of the child, not the parents. (See Ochoa v. Superior Court, supra, 39 Cal.3d at pp. 172-173, 216 Cal.Rptr. 661, 703 P.2d 1.) Any benefit the parents receive is indirect and incidental, in the form of the peace of mind that comes with knowing one's child is receiving needed medical care. That is, a transaction in which the defendant is to provide a child with medical treatment is intended to affect the child's parents only to a slight extent. To be sure, it is readily foreseeable that the delivery of negligent medical treatment may cause the parents emotional distress, but there is not a particularly close connection between the defendant's negligent medical treatment of the child and any injury the parents may suffer. Their injury will be largely derivative of any injury the child suffers; it is one they would suffer even in the face of non-negligent but unsuccessful medical treatment. (See Biakanja v. Irving, supra, 49 Cal.2d at p. 650, 320 P.2d 16.)