City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Publications and Research CUNY Graduate Center 1986 Caring Choices: Decision-making about Treatment for Catastrophically Ill Newborns Betty Wolder Levin CUNY Graduate Center, School of Public Health, and Brooklyn College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_pubs/161 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact:
[email protected] CARING CHOICES: DECISION MAKING ABOUT TREATMENT POR CATASTROPHICALLY ILL NEWBORNS Betty Wolder Levin Submitted in partial'fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 1986 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © 1986 BETTY WOLDER LEVIN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT CARING CHOICES: DECISION MAKING FOR CATASTROPHICALLY ILL NEWBORNS BETTY WOLDER LEVIN Decision making for catastrophically ill newborns has recently emerged as a social issue. Advances in biomedical technology and practice, and changes in other economic, social and political factors have led to controversy about norms to guide treatment choice. While much has been written on how such decisions should be made, there has been little social science research on how such decisions are actually made. The purpose of this dissertation is to elucidate the way that clinicians think about treatment decisions for catastrophically ill newborns. The focus is on decision making with respect to the limitation of treatment in those situations in which clinicians feel that an infant is terminally ill and/or severely impaired.