Three decades after Baby Doe: how neonatologists and bioethicists conceptualize the Best Interests Standard.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to determine how neonatologists and bioethicists conceptualize and apply the Best Interests Standard (BIS).

STUDY DESIGN: Members of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine were surveyed to determine how they conceptualized the BIS and ranked the appropriateness of forgoing life-sustaining therapy (LST).

RESULTS: Neonatologists' median response supported an infant-specific BIS conceptualization that linked the infant's and family's interests. They did not support allowing limitations on the family's obligations. Ethicists' supported a conceptualization that linked the infant's and family's interests and limitations on the family's obligations, a less infant-specific conceptualization. Ethicists were less or equally likely to agree with forgoing LST in seven of eight cases.

CONCLUSIONS: Ethicists endorsed a conceptualization of the BIS that includes the effects on the family and rejected an infant-specific one. Neonatologists split between these two and rejected limiting the family's obligations. Critical appraisal of the BIS is needed in neonatal ethics.