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

Eliminate the wo(e) or Eliminate the Patient? Proponents of euthanasia argue that mercy-killing is necessary because patients, curiously those with terminal illness, experience uncontrollable hurting(1). They argue that the only panache to comfort the pain is to eliminate the patient. But is there a better way? This essay proves that there is a better way, and this medical opinion is indorse up by the best medical opinion available. The better reception to patients in pain is not to kill them, but to make surely that the medicine and technology currently available to control pain is utilize more widely and completely. According to a 1992 manual produced by the serve ton Medical Association, botheration Management and Care of the Terminal Patient, qualified interventions exist to control pain in 90 to 99% of patients.2 The worry is that uninformed medical personnel using outdated or pathetic methods often fail in practice to bring patients relief from pain that todays advanced techniques make possible. Doctor Kathleen Foley, Chief of ail Services at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, explained in the July 1991 journal of Pain and Symptom Management how proper pain management has excuse patient wishes for assisted suicide We frequently see patients referred to our Pain Clinic who need physician-assisted suicide because of uncontrolled pain. We commonly see such ideation and requests dissolve with comme il faut control of pain and other symptoms, using 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 Control, (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 Management, Supra Note 1, pp. 149-53. 11. ibidem 12. Chuck Michelini, Patients Put in Control of Their Pain Medication, Medical Tribune (October 29, 1986) p. 46. 13. component Bylinsky, New Gains in the Fight Against Pain, Fortune (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 World 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, daybook of Pain and Symptom Management v. 8 (January 1993) p. 29.