Docs and Assisted Dying

While this article addresses the question of physician assisted dying, for me it also prompts a couple of questions:

 

1. When should doctors stop trying to cure a terminal disease? 

2. And should doctors stay at the bedside until death?

When my brother died two years ago of prostate cancer I noticed how some of the doctors involved with his care became physically distant as he neared death. Some didn't show up at all. 

What's the right thing to do?

L2  

Assisted Dying: Experts Debate Doctor's Role

Katie Moisse

ABC News

July 13, 2012

More than two-thirds of American doctors object to physician-assisted suicide, according to a 2008 study published in the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care. An editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine argues that removing doctors from assisted dying could make it more available to patients.

Link: Redefining Physicians' Role in Assisted Dying, New England Journal of Medicine, July 12, 2012