Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide - Eliminate the Pain or Eliminate the P

Eliminate the anguish or Eliminate the Patient? Proponents of mercy slaying surround that mercy-killing is necessary because patients, particularly those with terminal illness, experience uncontrollable pain(1). They argue that the only way to alleviate the pain is to eliminate the patient. But is in that location a best way? This essay proves that there is a better way, and this medical exam opinion is backed up by the best medical opinion lendable. The better response to patients in pain is not to kill them, but to make sure that the medicine and technology currently available to control pain is used more widely and completely. According to a 1992 manual produced by the Washing ton Medical Association, Pain centering and Care of the Terminal Patient, adequate interventions exist to control pain in 90 to 99% of patients.2 The problem is that uninformed medical personnel victimisation outdated or inadequate methods often fail in practice to bring patients relief from pa in that todays advanced techniques make possible. Doctor Kathleen Foley, foreland of Pain Services at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer Center in New York, explained in the July 1991 Journal of Pain and Symptom Management how victorian pain management has mitigated patient wishes for assisted suicide We often watch over patients referred to our Pain Clinic who request physician-assisted suicide because of uncontrolled pain. We commonly see such ideation and requests dissolve with adequate control of pain and other symptoms, exploitation combinations of pharmacologic, neurosurgical, anesthetic, or psychological approaches.3 In treating Total Pain 4, it should be remembered that the social and mental pain suffered by terminally ill patients may exace... ...tional cancer Institute, Questions and Answers about Pain rig, (1992), pp. 43-51. 9. Matthew Conolly, M.D., letter to author, August 2, 1993. 10. Louis Saeger, Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) in Caner Pain Manag ement, Supra Note 1, pp. 149-53. 11. Ibid. 12. Chuck Michelini, Patients Put in Control of Their Pain Medication, Medical Tribune (October 29, 1986) p. 46. 13. Gene Bylinsky, New Gains in the Fight Against Pain, mess (March 22, 1993) p. 116. 14. Matthew Conolly, M.D., letter to author, August 2, 1993. 15. Jane M. Anderson, Pain Management Challenging the Myths, Medical institution News (April 1992) p. 20. 16. David E. Weissman, June L. Dahl, and John W. Beasley, The Caner Pain Role Model Program of the Wisconsin Cancer Pain Initiative, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management v. 8 (January 1993) p. 29.