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Peter A. Singer, MD
Center for Clinical Medical Ethics University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine

JAMA. 1988;259(14):2096.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—The article¹ in which a gynecology resident describes how he injected a patient with a fatal overdose of morphine begs the question: What's over?

Debbie's life is over. Also over, however, is the tenet that killing is an act that our society finds abhorrent. That the resident could kill a patient, let alone one whom he did not know or with whom he had no relationship, represents a breach of any semblance of medical ethics and the rule of law. That JAMA could publish this cavalier description of homicide, however, bespeaks a social milieu that is tolerant to the killing of patients by physicians.

Over is an era when the physician's goal is to restore the health and wellbeing of the patient or, if he cannot achieve this, to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining therapies and provide adequate analgesia, care, and company to relieve the suffering and . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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