The government, by sanctioning various kinds of euthanasia, has undermined doctor-patient confidence, writes Philip G. Ney.
By Philip G. Ney
All physicians, almost everywhere, all the time are governed by the rules of evidence-based medicine. This means every medical act must be necessary and every medical, surgical, and psychiatric procedure must be beneficial to the patient, and it is incumbent upon every physician to demonstrate that these conditions are met with scientific evidence.
By these rules, euthanasia cannot be committed. There is no scientific evidence that euthanasia is the only treatment that can be done. There is no scientific evidence that euthanasia is beneficial. Those who perform and promote euthanasia have never attempted to fulfill the terms of evidence-based medicine, although it is clearly their responsibility.
They may feel it
is good and humane but there can be no substitute for research required by
evidence-based medicine to show necessity and benefit. Until that happens, the
government has no choice but to ban euthanasia or face the very expensive consequences
of undermining the basic tenets of medicine.
If your best friend, riding in the passenger’s front seat, is killed when you are T-boned, it makes a large difference to the quality and duration of your grief if you were driving through a red light or a green light. If for any reason you contribute to the cause of death, your guilt will impede your grieving.
Similarly, when a family member requests or sanctions euthanasia for parents or spouse, they are more likely to have a guilt-encrusted grief which usually is more painful and longer. They may request relief for their pathological grief and be diagnosed as depressed. The antidepressants they are prescribed dampen and suppress the acute feelings of sorrow, regret, anger and fear that are a necessary part of good grief. Thus they may never finish mourning and need to take medication for years.
When Hippocrates swore by all his gods never to poison a patient, I believe it was because he was fed up with trying to convince suspicious patients that his recommended potion was not hemlock. When patients don’t trust their physician they are reluctant to take their medication as prescribed. They want more tests, request a second or third opinion, medicate themselves, and take up much of their physician’s sparse time, hesitating and wanting to be convinced.
Now the government, by sanctioning various kinds of euthanasia, has undermined doctor-patient confidence. It has made the costs of medicine skyrocket and deprived physicians of much joy and satisfaction they once had in their practice.
Although I have treated thousands of patients who wanted to commit suicide, I have never encountered a patient who wanted to be dead. What suicidal people want is to be respected, needed, caressed, sung to, and have help in finishing the 10 necessary final tasks* before dying. When they have reconciled, prepared their final report to God, etc., they can let go of earthly life with calm sense it is finished and that there is a better place to be.
Philip G. Ney is a child and family psychiatrist and semiretired professor living in Sooke, B.C.
*Christian Principles of Palliative Care, Philip G. Ney, MD FRCP(C), Pioneer Publishing, Victoria, 2007