CBSSM Seminar: Roi Livne, PhD

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Wed, November 08, 2017, 3:00pm
Location: 
NCRC, Building 16, Room 266C

Roi Livne, PhD
Assistant Professor, Sociology

Title: “The New Economy of Dying: Palliative Care, Morality, and Finance in the Age of Excess”

Abstract: This talk argues that over the past 40 years, a new economy has emerged around end-of-life care: one seeking to control, cap, and limit both spending and treatment near the end of life. Built around the expertise of Hospice and Palliative Care, this economy draws on the moral conviction that near the end of life, less treatment (and consequently, less spending) is better. Based on a historical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork in three California hospitals, Livne examines the interactive work that palliative care clinicians do with severely ill patients and their families, trying to facilitate their voluntary consent to pursue less life-sustaining and life-prolonging treatments.