BACKGROUND A competent patient has the right to refuse foods and fluids even if the patient will die. The exercise of this right, known as voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED), is sometimes proposed as an alternative to physician assisted suicide. However, there is ethical and legal uncertainty about physician involvement in VSED. Are physicians advising of this option, or making pat...

BACKGROUND There has been much recent interest in the press and among the profession on the subject of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. The BMA recently conducted a 'consensus conference' over the internet to collect views on physician-assisted suicide. Any surveys to date have addressed a variety of specialties; however, no recent surveys have looked at general practitioner (GP) atti...

BACKGROUND In Switzerland, non-medical right-to-die organisations such as Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas offer suicide assistance to members suffering from incurable diseases. OBJECTIVES First, to determine whether differences exist between the members who received assistance in suicide from Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas. Second, to investigate whether the practices of Exit Deutsche ...

In the early hours of November 14, 1996, Card. Joseph Bernardin died of pancreatic cancer. The Archbishop of Chicago approached death not in fear but as a "transition from earthly life to life eternal." One of his last public acts was writing a letter to the U.S. Supreme Court. He asked the justices to reject arguments that the dying have a right to physician-assisted suicide. In two powerful a...

introduction: according to the world health organization (who) report, acute depression disorders are the second largest health problem in the world which can cause disability and imposes huge costs on individuals and societies. this study aims to investigate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of using psychotherapy in patients with depression for prevention of suicide and self harm commi...

Justice Department’s request for a rehearing. As of mid-September, it was not known whether Ashcroft will appeal to the Supreme Court. In 1997, before the second Oregon vote, the Court upheld laws in New York and Washington that prohibited physician-assisted suicide and unanimously ruled that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide. The Court, however, left the states free to legal...

Two new studies have investigated trends in euthanasia and assisted suicide in Belgium and the Netherlands. Marianne Snijdewind and colleagues’ study focused on practices at a Dutch clinic for people whose previous requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide have satisfi ed the legal requirements but have nonetheless been rejected. During the first year, the clinic answered 645 requests for eut...

For many people, the death of hope leads inexorably to the conclusion that the only viable solution, the only way to put an end to unendurable pain, is suicide. What leads a person to commit this final, desperate act, and how might we predict, intervene, and prevent suicide? Health care workers, including radiologic technologists, can play an important role in detecting warning signs in patient...

BACKGROUND In the Netherlands, people with a wish to die can request physician assistance in dying. However, almost two thirds of the explicit requests do not result in physician assistance in dying. Some people with a wish to end life seek counselling outside the medical context to end their own life. The aim of this cross-sectional research was to obtain information about clients receiving co...

CONTEXT The Oregon Death with Dignity Act, passed by ballot measure in 1994 and enacted in October 1997, legalized physician-assisted suicide for competent, terminally ill Oregonians, but little is known about the effects of the act on clinical practice or physician perspective. OBJECTIVE To examine Oregon physicians' attitudes toward and practices regarding care of dying patients since the p...