Thirty percent of the physicians who responded said that they had received requests from patients for medication or a lethal injection. The ongoing debate about the legality and morality of physician assisted-suicide is really about the process of dying. Terminally-ill persons demand the assistance of the medical profession in causing death almost always because their illnesses are too painful to bear. Unfortunately, few physicians are trained in managing the pain of dying patients. I completed four years of medical school, an internship and residency in internal medicine, and a two-year fellowship in geriatric medicine without receiving a single lecture on the proper management of pain.
Physicians fear disciplinary action for overprescribing nar-cotic drugs to patients.
Kathryn L. Tucker, a Seattle attorney, writes in the NEJM that given the availability of pain medications and the knowledge of how to use them, physician liability for failure to manage pain may not be far off. 201 Walton Ferry Road, Hendersonville, Tennessee 37077-0364. Copyright 1998 by Timothy L. Takacs.