Physician Resource Use and Willingness to Participate in Assisted Suicide

Physician resource use and willingness to participate in assisted suicide.

OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship between general internists' tendency to conserve medical resources and their willingness to participate in physician-assisted suicide (PAS). DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS Survey of a random sample of general internists in 6 urban areas of the United States. MEASUREMENTS We assessed the physicians' use of medical resources by constructing a scale based on 6 hy...

Physician-assisted suicide.

Medical professional codes have long prohibited physician involvement in assisting a patient's suicide. However, despite ethical and legal prohibitions, calls for the liberalization of this ban have grown in recent years. The medical profession should articulate its views on the arguments for and against changes in public policy and decide whether changes are prudent. In addressing such a conte...

Physician-assisted suicide.

On election day, November 14, 1994, Oregon voters elected a physician, Dr. John Kitzhaber, as their governor and, simultaneously, granted physicians the legal authority to help people end their own lives. By passing Ballot Measure 16,1 the voters decided that a physician may, at a patient's request, prescribe a medication "for the purpose of ending his or her life in a humane and dignified mann...

Psychiatry and physician-assisted suicide.

The psychiatric literature on physician-assisted suicide is scant and almost universally opposed to legalization. This opposition stems from the traditional perspective of suicide as a symptom of mental illness and the tendency of psychiatrists to extend their view of suicide in the medically well to the terminally ill. This article examines the basis for and validity of this opposition and mak...

Physician-assisted suicide and federalism.