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“Time to Deliver” on Healthcare »

As future doctors, we agree that our patients have total control over which form of treatment they will receive (regardless of our own recommendations), but what if the “treatment” they desire is a choice we didn’t present them with. How about something as drastic as death? Keep in mind… I’m not talking about DNRs here. I’m talking about a patient walking into the clinic and asking you to kill him/her.

Preserving life is inherently built into the field of medical care; however, physician-assisted suicide became a hot topic with Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s “practice” of medicine. He claims to have assisted tens of individuals with terminal illnesses receive the treatment they desired, but no other doctor would honor.

About a year and a half ago, Kevorkian spoke at the University of Florida to several thousand people about assisted suicide. He was quoted saying:

“My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It’s got to be decriminalized.”

If a terminal, adult patient with horrible physical/emotional pain asks for physician-assisted suicide, I surmise that the overwhelming majority of doctors would notify the patient of experimental treatments, adjust their pain meds, provide other options, etc. If the patient insists, then he or she will probably be referred to another doctor. Then that doctor will do the same. Then the next will follow. Ultimately, if the patient remains stubborn in his or her plight, they will either take their own life or find a physician like Kevorkian (if this was back in the early 1990′s).

Now let’s say that you were the patient. 80 years old with virtually no mobility, living through emotional and physical pain on a daily basis, and a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer at the top of your medical history. Pain meds barely take the edge off, and you’ve lost all hope for a “medical miracle.” Would you consider death as a treatment?

If such a patient asked me to kill him/her, I really have no idea how I’m supposed to handle the situation at this point in my education. Of course I wouldn’t honor the request, and I’d do everything in my power to convince the patient otherwise; nevertheless, if their position is unyielding, I would be forced to pass the case on to someone else.

What else could be done?

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As a third year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine, my posts are intended to educate others and share my experiences from this incredible journey without violating patient privacy at all costs. These blurbs are not to serve as a replacement for recommendations provided by licensed physicians under any circumstance.