Hca 322 Week 5 Final
WEEK 5 FINAL: ASSISTED SUICIDE
HCA322: Health Care Ethics & Medical Law
Instructor Sarah Howell
April 15, 2013
ASSISTED SUICIDE
“Aid in dying” is the most extensive idea of assisting someone to die. One component of this extensive idea is physician assisted death. Physician assisted death includes all of the types of euthanasia such as, active and passive euthanasia, which can be either voluntary or involuntary. A small subset of physician assisted death is physician assisted suicide (PAS). The concept of PAS covers a range of activities. On one end of the spectrum, there is the model used in Oregon; whereas the physician screens those who are seeking to commit suicide and, after determining the mental state, desire, and medical condition of the patient, assists in dying by writing a prescription for a lethal drug overdose. On the other end of the PAS spectrum is the active participation of a physician in assisting the patient by starting an intravenous solution and thereby more directly providing the means by which a patient can initiate the final act of committing suicide (Breitbart, 2012). Though seldom discussed, it is widely understood that the principal role of the physician is to “comfort always,” a role especially important when all hope to benefit from further treatment has faded. This ethic has never included assisting in suicide. When eliminating pain requires large amounts of morphine, unintended death in palliative treatment to provide comfort care raises few ethical, or legal, concerns. Almost certainly, physicians and other caregivers sometimes listen to the pleas of severe pain stricken patients to help them die, or solely from compassionate impulses they occasionally perform involuntary, active euthanasia on a medically hopeless patient who can no longer communicate (Sullivan, 2011). Indeed, both legal counsel and the healthcare administrators that provide advice must understand the legal and ethical implications of issues
HCA322: Health Care Ethics & Medical Law
Instructor Sarah Howell
April 15, 2013
ASSISTED SUICIDE
“Aid in dying” is the most extensive idea of assisting someone to die. One component of this extensive idea is physician assisted death. Physician assisted death includes all of the types of euthanasia such as, active and passive euthanasia, which can be either voluntary or involuntary. A small subset of physician assisted death is physician assisted suicide (PAS). The concept of PAS covers a range of activities. On one end of the spectrum, there is the model used in Oregon; whereas the physician screens those who are seeking to commit suicide and, after determining the mental state, desire, and medical condition of the patient, assists in dying by writing a prescription for a lethal drug overdose. On the other end of the PAS spectrum is the active participation of a physician in assisting the patient by starting an intravenous solution and thereby more directly providing the means by which a patient can initiate the final act of committing suicide (Breitbart, 2012). Though seldom discussed, it is widely understood that the principal role of the physician is to “comfort always,” a role especially important when all hope to benefit from further treatment has faded. This ethic has never included assisting in suicide. When eliminating pain requires large amounts of morphine, unintended death in palliative treatment to provide comfort care raises few ethical, or legal, concerns. Almost certainly, physicians and other caregivers sometimes listen to the pleas of severe pain stricken patients to help them die, or solely from compassionate impulses they occasionally perform involuntary, active euthanasia on a medically hopeless patient who can no longer communicate (Sullivan, 2011). Indeed, both legal counsel and the healthcare administrators that provide advice must understand the legal and ethical implications of issues
References: Breitbart, W. (2012). The physician 's role in physician-assisted suicide. Palliative & Supportive Care, 10(4), 237-239. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1478951512000752 Burgmann, T. (2013, Mar 19). Assisted suicide has no 'right answer '; government lawyer says many acting out of fear for the future. Kamloops Daily News. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1319448033?accountid=32521 Pickert, Kate (2009). "A Brief History of Assisted Suicide." Time 3 Pozgar, G. D., & Santucci, N. (2013). Legal and Ethical Issues for Health Professionals (2nd Edition). Sudbury, Maine : Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Seale, C. (2009). Legalisation of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide: Survey of doctors ' attitudes. Palliative Medicine,23(3), 205-12. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269216308102041 Sjöstrand, M., Helgesson, G., Eriksson, S., & Juth, N. (2013). Autonomy-based arguments against physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia: A critique. Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy, 16(2), 225-30. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11019-011-9365-5 Spike, J. P. (2012). Ethical and legal issues in patient care. In O. Z. Sahler, J. E. Carr, J. B. Frank, J. Nunes (Eds.) , The behavioral sciences and health care (3rd ed.) (pp. 274-282). Cambridge, MA US: Hogrefe Publishing. Sullivan, S. (2011). The right to die: a discussion of 'rational suicide '. Mental Health Practice, 14(6), 32-34. Tucker, Kathyrn L. (2009). "The Evolving Policy on Physician-Assisted Suicide." Medical Ethics Advisor 25.10 114-15. White, D. B., & Brody, B. (2011). Would Accommodating Some Conscientious Objections by Physicians Promote Quality in Medical Care?. JAMA: Journal Of The American Medical Association, 305(17), 1804-1805.