Last month, the SMA News carried an article by Drs Jacqueline Chin and Jacinta Tan about an ongoing research project in the NUS Centre for Biomedical Ethics to study attitudes on "end of life decisions". Such research is critical, as are healthy open debates on these issues. Hopefully, these will pave the way to sound decision making about euthanasia and the related practice of patient assisted suicide.
Personally though I am not hopeful. Attitudes here are relatively conservative and too 'kiasu' about the sliding down the slippery slope. Public opinions are constrained too much by sensitiveness towards perceived religious values. This is not wrong. But it does limit our options to be "progressive".
Let's see what happens.
For those who are interested, you can contact Drs Chin and Tan at: Dr Jacqueline Chin or Dr Jacinta Tan at EOL.Decisions2010@gmail.com.
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13 comments:
It all depends on what is meant by "progressive". Not all "progressive" things are good.
Of course..... here we are referring to 'progressing' towards a situation where an individual should have more control and choice over the way he or she wishes to die.
"...an individual should have more control and choice over the way he or she wishes to die."
I think the biggest misconception about the discussion of the topic of euthanasia or assisted suicide is that it is about an individual's right/control/choice to die; the right to die has always been there since human beings developed suicide, and most people who want to kill themselves can and will do so (even if they are undergoing an EEG under the watchful eyes of hospital staff...).
What we are really talking about here is whether an individual has the right to allow someone else to kill him or her without legal repercussions; if you accept that we have that right, then the rest are merely details.
I believe there is suicide, and then there's suicide.
There is suicide when you squeeze between clinic chairs, climb and squeeze yourself through narrow windows and splatter yourself on the hospital floor.
Then there's suicide, when someone at the tail end of a futile painful struggle against an incurable disease, can opt to pass away peacefully and with dignity, at a time of his or her own choosing.
The question is not so much the necessity of legalizing euthanasia which would require another person to pull the trigger for you, but the legality for a doctor to provide the guidance and means for a patient to do it him/herself.
Assisted suicide.
"... the legality for a doctor to provide the guidance and means for a patient to do it him/herself."
Why does it have to be a doctor?
"Why does it have to be a doctor?"
Only 'cos we are docs talking to docs.
You are right. The 'illegality' is not restricted to doctors. Anyone can be guilty of abetting the crime of suicide, as long as suicide is a crime.
I'm saying we should take doctors out of the equation altogether - train people who can perform euthanasia, or who can teach patients to kill themselves.
It certainly seems to me like a waste of time and manpower to make someone go through medical school and then not have him or her save lives but doing the opposite.
Academic point, since it is currently criminal regardless of whether a doctor or non-doctor is involved.
"It certainly seems to me like a waste of time and manpower to make someone go through medical school and then not have him or her save lives but doing the opposite."
I think you make too much of a doctor's role in 'saving lives'. Perhaps doctoring has a broader ambit than just the saving of lives.
'The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.'
William Osler
A patient becomes a patient because he has a disease.
Perhaps doctors should concentrate more on being good at what they are supposed to be good at rather than trying to be good.
Not so sure, AngryDoc,... a patient is a patient by virtue of the fact he comes to see the doctor, and is not necessarily defined by the disease he/she has. It's such a truism, isn't it, that we say we are dealing with Mt Tan or Mdm Koh rather than that old lady with a Ca breast. Sadly, too often, all the doctor sees is that old lady with the Ca breast, and who needs to be 'saved' from the ravages of the cancer.
"Perhaps doctors should concentrate more on being good at what they are supposed to be good at rather than trying to be good."
I would turn that on its head and say a doctor cannot be good at what he does, unless and until he learns how to be 'good'. We can of course debate the meaning of the word 'good', but I would include in there values such as honesty, integrity, compassion... and sacrifice.
"all the doctor sees is that old lady with the Ca breast, and who needs to be 'saved' from the ravages of the cancer."
If Mdm Koh doesn't want us to save her from cancer, why does she come to see us?
...so she will not be your patient if you cannot "save" her?
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