|
|
My view about end-of-life care is that it is a very fundamental and important part of medical care and medical training and that, for too long, has sort of been in the background and I think in recent years has come into the foreground.
People need to be given meaningful choices. Probably one of the best choices to think about is palliative care or hospice care, which focus on pain and symptom management, giving people the opportunity to do other things with their family, friends, and in their spiritual life at the end of life.
We are able to help most people achieve comfort, but there are some tough cases. People who are receiving good palliative care, good hospice care, have been in hospice programs for a long time, have found meaning, done the work they want to do, but toward the very end, find themselves in very difficult situations where they are ready to die. They are suffering a lot, and they are asking for assistance. And I believe that we have an obligation to assist them. Physician-assisted suicide would be the last resort of the last resorts.
|
|
 |
At the present time, we know that under-treatment of pain and other sources of physical distress is widespread. Many studies show that almost half of patients surveyed in the U.S. do not receive basic pain medications. Communication between doctors, patients and their families is often inadequate, patients' preferences for care, including their clear preference to avoid unwanted life-sustaining treatment goes ignored. Living wills aren't filled out by patients, and even if they are, people's preferences often go unheeded.
We know that patients often suffer from more than physical symptoms. They suffer, for instance, from a sense of being a burden to those that they love-- including a financial burden. One of the things that people tell me that they fear most and that makes them consider suicide is the fear of ending up in a nursing home.
So I think it's important to understand that we have lots of work to do to meet basic responsibilities to people as they die before we can even begin talking about legalizing the so-called "right to die."
|
|
