Double effect: a useful rule that alone cannot justify hastening death

The rule of double effect is regularly invoked in ethical discussions about palliative sedation, terminal extubation and other clinical acts that may be viewed as hastening death for imminently dying patients. Unfortunately, the literature tends to employ this useful principle in a fashion suggesting that it offers the final word on the moral acceptability of such medical procedures. In fact, the rule cannot be applied appropriately without invoking moral theories that are not explicit in the rule itself. Four tenets of the rule each require their own ethical justification. A variety of moral theories are relevant to making judgements in a pluralistic society. Much of the rich moral conversation germane to the rule has been reflected in arguments about physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia, but the rule itself has limited relevance to these debates, and requires its own moral justifications when applied to other practices that might hasten death.     

Physician-assisted death. Opinions of a sample of Mexican physicians

BACKGROUND: There is insufficient information on what Mexicans think of physician-assisted death, a problem that is currently being discussed in our legislative bodies. This paper discusses the findings among a sample of physicians. METHODS: The sample was formed by 2097 physicians from several specialties employed by a Mexican government health system, distributed throughout the country. Each physician received a structured questionnaire exploring what they thought of two different scenarios related to physician-assisted death: 1) intolerable suffering of patients; and 2) persistent vegetative state (PVS). Questions included data on several personal characteristics of the respondents and two open-ended questions asking the reasons why they answered the main questions as they did. RESULTS: There was an overall response rate of 47.3%. Approximately 40% agreed with physicians helping terminally ill patients request to die because of intolerable suffering caused by incurable diseases, whereas 44% said no and the rest were undecided. This was statistically different from the answers to the scenario where the relatives of a patient in a PVS ask their physician to help him or her die, where 48% of respondents said yes, and 35% said no. The main reasons to say yes in both scenarios were respect for patients or family autonomy and to avoid suffering, whereas those opposed cited other ethical and mainly religious considerations. CONCLUSIONS: The variable with the highest probability to approve both scenarios was of a legal nature, whereas strong religious beliefs were against accepting physician-assisted death. The group was evenly divided with approximately 40% each between those for and against the idea of helping die a patient and approximately 20% were undecided.     

The impact of routine advice on smoking cessation from family physicians.

Cigarette smoking continues to be a major health problem. Therefore, physicians have been asked to advise all their patients on the hazards of smoking. A controlled trial was undertaken to measure the impact of family physicians' advice to cigarette smokers during a routine office visit. No significant differences were found in the three measures used to determine outcome--desire to stop smoking, an attempt to stop and success in stopping--between the control and intervention groups. These results are discussed in relation to the health belief model, and suggestions are made on how to increase the impact family physicians could have on smoking cessation to their practices.     

The impact of reading a clinical study on treatment decisions of physicians and residents

The study presented here reports on the impact of newly published clinical research on physicians' decisions. Eighty-three pediatricians, pediatric residents, and family practitioners were presented with a common, potentially serious problem, an infant with a high fever, and were required to estimate the probabilities of bacteremia and of acquiring meningitis and to choose from management options. The participants then read a published scientific report addressing the risks of meningitis in febrile infants and were asked afterward to answer again the questions relating to the clinical problem. After reading the study, the participants significantly increased their probability estimates of the patient acquiring meningitis. Only 14 percent of the participants would have hospitalized the patient before reading the article, but 47 percent would have done so after reading the article. Pediatricians were more likely than family practitioners to use antibiotics after reading the article. These decisions were not based not based on logical processing of information, as there was no correlation between the physicians' estimate of the risk of meningitis and the underlying risk of bacteremia and no correlation between the participants' decisions to hospitalize or use antibiotics and their estimated risk of the patient developing meningitis. Physicians appear to have considerable difficulty in using probability data and appear to base estimates of serious disease and subsequent management on intuition rather than calculation.     

临终关怀对临终患者死亡质量的影响

目的探讨临终关怀对临终患者死亡质量的影响,探索有效的临终关怀措施以促进终末期患者实现优逝。方法 100例临终患者随机分为研究组50例和对照组50例,试验组开展临终关怀治疗措施,对照组采用常规治疗措施。对死亡患者家属进行回访,采用善终期望量表(GDI)比较2组患者死亡质量。结果对照组患者GDI得分为(118±20)分,研究组患者得分为(139±16)分,高于对照组(P<0.01)。并且研究组患者GDI表的10个核心维度均高于对照组患者。结论本研究采取的人性化临终关怀策略可有效提高患者的死亡质量。     

The impact of physician denial upon patient autonomy and well-being.

It is now widely accepted that a patient's ability to engage in autonomous decision-making can be seriously threatened when she denies significant aspects of her medical condition. In this paper I use a true case to reveal the harmful effects of physician denial upon patient autonomy and well-being. I suggest further that such physician denial may be more common than is generally acknowledged, since aspects of the contemporary medical ethos likely serve to reinforce rather than to undercut such denial.