NR 328 ETHICAL DILEMMA ASSIGNMENT

INTRODUCTION¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ During my clinical rotation at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in the NICU there was a set of twins, B.L. and J.L. who had been admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit 6 days prior. They were born premature at 27 weeks and both weighed less than 2lbs. J.L., the smaller of the two babies, was diagnosed with necrotizing enterocolitis. This diagnosis meant that J.L’s bowel was inflamed and his intestinal tissue was dying; there was also a perforation in the bowel that had lead to sepsis. J.L. was very sick and his prognosis was very poor. His parents wanted him to have continued care and surgeries; they wanted everything that could be done to keep their son alive. J.L.’s physicians believed that there was nothing left to do for J.L. and that the best thing for him was to receive palliative care. In the NICU, parents are often faced with the immense, heartbreaking responsibility to decide to withdraw life-sustaining treatments for their infant. Similarly, health-care providers are confronted with the ethical dilemma to continue or