Oregon Doctor's Letter to Massachusetts Medical Society

RE:     Massachusetts Medical Society House of Delegates
Report: 105, 1-11(A), Physician-Assisted Suicide Policy.

To members of the Massachusetts Medical Society,

I practice internal medicine in Oregon where assisted suicide is legal.  I write to urge you to maintain your policy against physician-assisted suicide and have attached a copy of this letter to this email.  Contrary to marketing rhetoric by suicide advocates, the safeguards do not protect patients.  Please consider my patient’s story below.

I was caring for a 76 year-old man who presented to my office with a sore on his arm, eventually diagnosed as metastatic malignant melanoma.  I referred him to both medical and radiation oncology for evaluation and therapy. I had known this patient and his wife for over a decade. He was an avid hiker, a popular hobby here in Oregon, and as his disease progressed, he was less able to do this, becoming depressed, which was documented in his chart.My patient expressed a wish for doctor-assisted suicide to the medical oncologist, but rather than take the time to address depression or ask me, as his primary care physician, to talk with him, the specialist called me and asked me to be the "second opinion" for his suicide.  I told her that assisted suicide was not appropriate for this patient, but unfortunately, my concerns were ignored, and two weeks later my depressed patient was dead from an overdose prescribed by this doctor. His death certificate listed the cause of death as melanoma.

Oregon doctor finds fault with assisted suicide law

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2011/10/04/oregon_doctor_finds_fault_with_states_law/ 

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I am a doctor practicing medicine in Oregon and Washington, where physician-assisted suicide is legal. I disagree with Scot Lehigh that these suicides are not like other suicides in which “a healthy person [takes] his life for reasons of despair, depression, or hopelessness’’ (“Death with dignity in Mass.,’’ Op-ed, Sept. 23).

First, doctors can be wrong. So, what looks like a few months to live can be years. For a good article on this subject, see Nina Shapiro’s January 2009 "Terminal Uncertainty" in the Seattle Weekly.

Second, despair, depression, and hopelessness are a part of assisted suicide. A few years ago, a patient of mine who was undergoing cancer treatment with a specialist became depressed, and expressed a wish for assisted suicide.

In most jurisdictions, suicidal ideation is interpreted as a cry for help. In Oregon, the only help my patient got was a lethal prescription intended to kill him.  Don’t make our mistake. Keep assisted suicide out of Massachusetts.

Dr. Charles J. Bentz

Portland, Ore.

 

The writer is an associate professor of medicine in the division of general medicine and geriatrics at Oregon Health & Science University.