2. What is Physician Assisted Death?
It’s the voluntary termination of one’s own life by taking lethal medication with
direct or indirect assistance of a physician.
This does not include Euthanasia, which is…
Death caused by an intentionally lethal dose of medication ordered by a physician
and administered by a physician or nurse.
1. Voluntarily or Involuntary awareness and/or consent
3. Why we are for the issue
1. With evidence to suggest the main reason patients
seek death are due to…
pain and suffering
Fears about the future quality of life and becoming
a burden to others.
4. Suffering VS Pain
Pain: physical, social, psychological, or spiritual
Suffering: distress that is perceived
Increased suffering
Loss of control
Source of pain is unknown or meaning is dire
Pain is chronic or can’t be controlled
Decreased suffering
When pain is understood (childbirth, sciatica, trauma)
5. Fears About The Future
Fear of losing control
-unable to participate in ADL’s
Becoming a big burden on their loved ones.
physically
- Change in appearance and sense of self
mentally.
- Continuous loss of cognitive function
6. Physician Assisted Death attitudes.
• “Do you think a person has the right
to end his or her own life if this
person has an incurable disease?”
8. Autonomy
A person is autonomous if he/she is self-governing, capable of making decisions,
and fixing a course of action in the absence of controlling constraints
It involves self-determination, freedom, independence, liberty of choice and action
9. Why We Support the Issue!
It provides a way to relieve extreme uncontrollable pain
It provides a way of relief, when a person’s quality of life is low.
It provides a way of having control of what will happen.
It provides a relief of the financial burden that can consumes a patient when
terminal with no relief.
10. The Opposition of The Issue
No rights for patients
Gives legal protection, whether it is civil or criminal for physicians involved in
medical killing.
Alternative care
Implement stronger analgesia if pain has not been controlled.
Encourage palliative care to relief the physical and psychosocial distress.
Proposition gives physician a license to kill.
Doctors can be wrong
11. References
D.E. Meier, C.A. Emmons, A. Litke, S. Wallenstein, R.S. Morrison
Characteristics of patients requesting and receiving physician-assisted death
Arch Intern Med, 163 (2003), pp. 1537-1542
Emanuel E.J., Onwuteaka-Philipsen B.D., Urwin J.W., Cohen J.
Attitudes and practices of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the United States, Canada,
and Europe
JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 316, 2016
Pearlman, R. A., Hsu, C., Starks, H., Back, A. L., Gordon, J. R., Bharucha, A. J., … Battin, M. P. (2005).
Motivations for Physician-assisted Suicide: Patient and Family Voices. Journal of General Internal
Medicine, 20(3), 234–239. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2005.40225.x
Snyder L, Sulmasy DP, . Physician-Assisted Suicide. Ann Intern Med. 2001;135:209–216. doi:
10.7326/0003-4819-135-3-200108070-00015
Editor's Notes
According to Medicenet.com..
Define Assisted death and how it’s different from euthanasia.
The difference is who delivers the lethal dose.
Pain can not only be physical, but social, psychological and/or spiritual
Many suffer not only from disease, but also from its treatments. Many conditions are painful upsetting, uncomfortable, and distressing, but not a source of suffering.
. Pain causes suffering when patients feel out of control, when the pain is overwhelming, when the source of the pain is unknown, when the meaning of the pain is dire, or when the pain is chronic.
In all these situations, persons perceive pain as a threat to their continued existence - not merely to their lives, but to their integrity as persons.
We try to relieve suffering, by making the source of pain known, controlling it and give indication that the end is near. Fear itself always involves the future and suffering goes away when the future is not a major concern.
Suffering can occur-when physicians do not validate the patient's pain.
Suffering may be expressed by sadness, anger, loneliness, depression, grief, unhappiness, melancholy, rage, withdrawal, or yearning.
Becoming very weak and ill
Losing hair with chemo, Having tubes coming out of many orifices.
3. Essentially the fear of becoming a vegetable or in a coma and having the thought of their loved ones around and not being aware of what’s going on.
The fear on passing on additional duties to loved ones, such as cleaning you, feeding you, babysitting you.
The support for PAD is even higher among young adults. According to PEW research center, between the ages of 18 and 34 (81%) favor PAD in 2015, compared to 62% in a 2014 Gallup survey.
Next I want to speak about autonomy
For a patient to be completely aware of the situation and the choices they are making. A patient cannot have cognitive deficits and push for PAD
Essentially Autonomy is human free of outside intervention and interference.
Cognitive deficits such as, dementia, memory loss, mentally delayed
