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Willful Death and Painful Decisions: A Failed Assisted Suicide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2009

Kenneth V. Iserson ,
Dorothy Rasinski Gregory ,
Kate Christensen  and
Marc R. Ofstein
Kenneth V. Iserson
Affiliation:
Director of the Program in Bioethics at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and Chair of the Bioethics Committee.
Dorothy Rasinski Gregory
Affiliation:
Associate at the Center for Health Care Ethics, St. Joseph Health System, Orange, California.
Kate Christensen
Affiliation:
Regional Ethics Coordinator, Kaiser-Permanente Northern California, and Chairman of the Patient Care Ethics Committee there.
Marc R. Ofstein
Affiliation:
Chair of the Bioethics Committee at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, Long Beach, California.
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Extract

The patient was a woman in her 30s who, until the rapid progression of an ultimately fatal neurologic disease, had been a very successful professional, enjoying athletics and an active social life. In the 6 months of swift deterioration, she had gone from being extremely vibrant and energetic to being totally unable to care for her personal needs. There had been no loss of intellectual capacity. Her sister later recounted to Dr. J., the emergency department physician, that she had found the patient unconscious and unresponsive at home and had immediately called the patient's neurologist in a neighboring city. He directed her to call the paramedics.

Type
Ethics Committees at Work
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , Spring 1992 , pp. 147 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

Notes

1. Iserson, KV.Foregoing prehospital care: should ambulance staff always resuscitate? Journal of Medical Ethics 1991;17 19–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

2. Iserson, KV, Sanders, AB, Mathieu, DR, Buchanan, AE, eds. Ethics in Emergency Medicine. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1986.Google Scholar