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G. Kevin Donovan, MD
University of Oklahoma Tulsa

JAMA. 1995;274(24):1911.

	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.

—Ms Alpers and Dr Lo¹ have correctly identified Oregon's effort to legalize physician-assisted suicide as a "bold experiment." However, their analysis fails to adequately address the issue on two counts: does suicide assistance constitute health care and is it rightly seen as a benefit?

The first question begs for an answer, perhaps because it seems self-evident. Why should suicide assistance come through a physician's involvement? In truth, the medical expertise required to successfully poison someone is not so great as to require a medical degree. A physician's involvement seems desirable because of the trust placed in the profession, a trust that will be severely undermined if the profession takes it upon itself to bring about patients' deaths. As the authors point out, this assistance would not even require a long-term relationship with the patient, but could commence at the first visit. To their credit, the authors . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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