# PHYSICIAN DILEMMAS IN GERIATRIC CARE

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 1993 · $109,741

## Abstract

The goal of this 30-month qualitative anthropological study is to
describe and examine the ways in which 100 primary care physicians
explain and approach everyday clinical-ethical decisions, dilemmas and
obstacles in their practice with geriatric patients.  The study has three
specific aims: in order to reach decisions; 30 to investigate various
structural or institutional constraints that impinge on physicians'
delivery of health care.

Data will be collected through in-depth, open-ended interviews with
practicing physicians in internal medicine, family practice, general
practice, and geriatrics.  All physicians who participate will have a
significant portion of their practices devoted to the care of older
persons and will face clinical-ethical dilemmas with some regularity.
Interviews will be supplemented by participant observation at appropriate
case conferences and institutional ethics committee meetings.

Qualitative content analysis will be the data analysis method used.
Three distinct approaches of this technique will be employed:  1) cross-
sectional comparison, in order to describe discrete patterns of thought,
opinion, and behavior, and the variations therein; 2)thematic analysis
and the case study approach, to identify themes that emerge within a
specific case; and 30 frequencies of response, in which frequencies of
themes and other variables are generated.  Ethnograph, a social science
computer software tool, will be used to facilitate the management,
sorting, and coding of quantitative data.  The interpretive goal of the
project is to make explicit some of the tacit values, developments, and
definitions in the day to day clinical-ethical work of physicians that
have contributed to dilemmas in geriatric care.

To date there have been no systematic, empirical studies which
investigate the everyday problems physicians face in providing care to
older patients.  This project will contribute to our understanding of a)
how physicians approach and respond to clinical-ethical dilemmas, and b)
how moral decisions in geriatric medicine actually get made.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3123451
- **Project number:** 1R01AG011538-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **SAM.gov UEI:** KMH5K9V7S518
- **Principal Investigator:** SHARON R KAUFMAN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1993
- **Award amount:** $109,741
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 1993-09-15 → 1996-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3123451

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3123451, PHYSICIAN DILEMMAS IN GERIATRIC CARE (1R01AG011538-01). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3123451. Licensed CC0.

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