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- Title
Physician-assisted suicide--a clean bill of health?
- Authors
Preston, Robert
- Abstract
Background: Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) laws have been enacted in five US States and, along with physician-administered euthanasia, in Canada and the Netherlands. Sources of data: Annual reports of the Oregon Health Authority and published research papers. Areas of agreement: Not all recipients of lethal drugs use them to end their lives. Improvements in palliative care provision. Areas of controversy: Rising numbers of deaths from PAS. Emergence of 'doctor shopping' and multiple-prescribing. Absence of qualitative scrutiny of assessment process. No re-assessment or oversight when prescribed drugs are ingested. Recent pressures to extend Oregon's PAS law. Growing points: Reasons given for seeking PAS indicate this is a societal rather than a clinical issue and raise the question whether adjudicating on requests for legalized PAS is an appropriate role for doctors. Areas for timely research: Research into quality of decision-making in requests for PAS and into potential role of doctors as expert witnesses rather than judges in requests for PAS.
- Subjects
UNITED States; EUTHANASIA laws; MEDICAL decision making; RIGHT to die laws; PROGNOSIS
- Publication
British Medical Bulletin, 2017, Vol 123, Issue 1, p69
- ISSN
0007-1420
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/bmb/ldx021