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Is There Time to Talk?

Eric D. Caine, MD; Yeates C. Conwell, MD

JAMA. 1993;270(7):875-876.

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

The bond between patient and doctor is frequently tested by life's challenges. It must be strong enough to buoy the patient until calmer times arrive, and should prove rewarding and renewing for both participants. Too many times, however, there is no bond or it has no substance beyond superficial convention. Patients admitted to acute care hospitals frequently do not know their physicians. In this era of entrepreneurial medicine, business principles are applied. Medicine and government together focus on productivity and "units of service." Rationing, benefit plans, and cost containment have taken center stage in the public arena.

It is within this broad and unsettled context that the national debate regarding "rational suicide" and "physician-assisted suicide" has arisen. Whether people have the right to thoughtfully choose the time and means of their death, and what role physicians should play in the process are overlapping, but not identical issues. Ironically, they are . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Clinical Research Center for the Study of Psychopathology of the Elderly, Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester (NY) Medical Center.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to the University of Rochester Medical Center, 300 Crittenden Blvd, Rochester, NY 14642-8409 (Dr Caine).

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