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In terms of where I live this matter has been debated for the best part of 40 years. For the last 30 years, some doctors have travelled with their patients to other parts of the world to assist them with dying and this has been captured by our media in a very public way. The whole, sad and painful story told. It has now come to the point that this year each state has started to introduce euthanasia laws. So, it is not such a dilemma for many people here any more.
My own state, Western Australia introduced legislation two days ago that a person would have to be 18 or over to qualify for voluntary euthanasia. They would have to be terminally ill with a condition that is causing intolerable suffering, and is likely to cause death within six months or 12 months for a neurodegenerative condition. The patient can either administer the drug themselves or ask a doctor to do it for them. The patient must make two verbal requests and one written request. Each patient request must be signed off by two doctors independent of each other. The approval must be done within nine days from the initial request to the final approval. The legislation is being fast tracked. The leading medical association is opposed to it.
For me, and I am generalising here, the Oath ensures that a doctor does take into account the necessary considerations when dealing with such an issue. It will always be a case by case basis.
Dr John is interesting because it is testing the boundaries in a part of the world that I think has only just started to deal with the matter publicly re pain management and whether there are circumstances in which a patient has a right to die. It will even be more interesting where Show ends up in terms of any solutions it may provide, such as some of those I mentioned above, or will it remain one of personal vendettas.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
Now someone just needs to staple this to the Prosecutor’s forehead, perhaps the nurse’s and the sister’s too :)