Page 18 - Delaware Medical Journal - July-August 2018
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Membership Survey on Physician-Assisted Suicide:
Closing the Loop... but Not the Discussion
Richard W. Henderson, MD
Principle 1 of the AMA Principles of Medical Ethics calls for “compassion and respect for human dignity and rights.” These are important elements in the discussion
and debate surrounding physician-assistant suicide (PAS). When this principle is applied to the issue of PAS, those on both sides come to very different conclusions, which in turn informs their advocacy efforts on this subject.
While there are clearly very good and intelligent people on both sides of this issue, the differences in the conclusions reached by each side create a schism that is both deep and wide. This has been demonstrated here in Delaware since legislation for PAS
Since then, both the title of the bill as well as some of the terminology used in it have been changed, seemingly in an effort to strike the right tone. However, both the content and principles it would promote have not. Through the time and work of the Medical Society of Delaware (MSD) Committee
on Ethics, the important and controversial issue raised by this legislation has been carefully and thoughtfully reviewed each year that it has been reintroduced. This review changed neither the language used in the MSD policy nor its opposition to PAS. Along with the opinion of the Government Affairs Committee and there remained considerable discussion about this important topic at meetings of MSD membership.
Because of the ongoing discussions and in the spirit of transparency, I charged the Committee on Ethics, chaired by John J. Goodill, MD, with the task of developing a survey on legislation was introduced in 2015. The purpose of this survey would be simple: to determine where MSD membership stood on this important issue as clearly as possible. The results of the survey would be used to inform the current MSD position on this important issue. Given the limited resources available
to MSD to do such a survey, it was both recognized and understood that the results of such a survey may be neither Executive Board felt that it was both appropriate and important that MSD policy on PAS be guided by our membership.
It should be noted that in the effort to make the survey questions as non-biased and as “clean” as possible, they were also reviewed by an independent, non-MSD-related entity with experience in doing such surveys.
While there is a difference of opinion on the subject of PAS, there is also a debate on how to refer to it. Historically, this activity has been referred to as “physician-assisted suicide” and our survey used other terms interchangeably to mean the same. MSD, however, chooses to use the term “physician-assisted suicide” when referring to this topic.
In this edition of the Delaware Medical Journal, I present the results of the MSD survey on PAS. In doing so, I would like to thank Dr. Goodill and the MSD team for their contributions and help in preparing this. MSD is fortunate to have physicians, such as Dr. Goodill and our many other colleagues, to volunteer both their time and energy on committees to do work for the good of all the physicians in Delaware through MSD. For the moment, I hope this will close the loop on the PAS survey, but clearly not the discussion.
ANALYSIS OF SURVEY RESULTS
Our survey on PAS was sent this past April via electronic communication to all current dues-paying MSD members, as well as retired and resident members. Of the 950 successful email deliveries to request participation in the survey, 342 of those emails were opened and read by the recipients, while 141 actually took the survey, representing an overall response rate of 15%. The results of the survey were posted on the MSD website for review. The following is a summary of the results.
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Del Med J | July/August 2018 | Vol. 90 | No. 6
